The Minister of Health, Mercedes Roldós, suggested this Monday that the joint general strike of public health and education workers is a smokescreen ahead of the union elections in March. On the subject of health, Roldós stated that "we must prioritize patients over elections" and therefore, she hopes to reach an agreement and consensus on February 13, at the sectoral table.
"Vital public services, such as healthcare, should not be used to obtain benefits in other areas," said Roldós. "We are making a huge effort in the Ministry of Health, specifically, we are putting 109 million euros on the table, which is 18,000 million of the old pesetas, for salary improvements for staff," she pointed out.
"I don't know of any other Autonomous Community that has budgeted an effort of these characteristics, taking into account the debt that the State has with the Canary Islands, which amounts to 823 million euros, which never arrive," concluded Roldós.
In this labor problem, "it is about giving stability in employment through dialogue and consensus," the Minister specified, "we will see next Wednesday."
Distant positions in Education
For its part, the Ministry of Education, Universities, Culture and Sports regrets that the four unions signing the strike notice in non-university public education remain unyielding in their position and refuse to talk about anything other than salary increases in exchange for nothing.
The quantification, by the unions that make up the strike committee, of a salary increase of between a minimum of 140 and a maximum of 250 million euros per year (that is, between 23,294 and 41,596 million pesetas), as well as the rejection of the counterparts linked to improving the quality of the system by the unions, has led to a new lack of understanding in the meeting held this afternoon with the educational Administration, represented by the Deputy Minister of Education and Universities of the Government of the Canary Islands, Gonzalo Marrero.
The Government, for its part, has announced to the unions that the 80 million euros (more than 13,300 million pesetas) planned for the next five years is the greatest possible budgetary effort, which would mean a total disbursement of 232 million euros for public coffers at the end of the period, since the increases are accumulated year after year. Likewise, the 80 million would already be part of the annual increase that would have to be considered after that date.
However, FETE-UGT, STEC-IC, EA Canarias and UCPL have not accepted negotiating a remuneration framework for teachers and have once again stated that they will only accept homologation without counterparts. In this regard, Gonzalo Marrero reiterated to the unions that there is no legal protection to claim homologation with the rest of the officials of the autonomous community of equal category and qualification. According to the doctrine of the Constitutional Court, remuneration homologation between officials whose functions are essentially different is not possible.
In this sense, the Deputy Minister recalled that the 1991 Law established a five-year plan of remuneration increases on the specific supplement and that it fulfilled its objective when this period ended. "Therefore -he added- we cannot speak of an indefinite validity, nor of a subjective right to permanent homologation."
Finally, the Government expressed its surprise that counterparts that were already part of the 91 Law are now being rejected, simply because on this occasion their compliance is linked to salaries.
ACN Press