Six of the eight parties represented in the Cabildo have registered this Friday a document requesting the holding of an extraordinary and urgent Plenary Session, after the president, Pedro San Ginés, refused to convene it automatically for this Friday. With that Plenary Session, the majority of the Corporation wants to submit to a vote a proposal that could put an end "immediately" to the strike of the Tourist Centers, and that has been on the table for a week, although the Canary Coalition has refused to debate it.
For his part, San Ginés has insisted on calling that proposal "illegal", stating that "under this Presidency" that agreement will not be approved. Regarding that extraordinary Plenary Session requested by the opposition, he pointed out that "it will be the government group that decides if there will be one and when there will be one", despite the fact that he is obliged by law to convene it, having been requested by 14 councilors of the Corporation (in total the signatory groups have 15 councilors, although one of them, Tomás López, is outside the island). In addition, the president has indicated that if the proposal is approved, his group will appeal it "wherever necessary".
To argue that this proposal is illegal, San Ginés has once again referred to an audit report, dated August 28, to which CC and the management of the Centers have been clinging in the last week. However, he then acknowledged that this report "does not expressly speak of this conflict." This is precisely what the opposition has been reproaching him for days, and what they have warned again this Friday.
"A twisted report due to the question that is asked"
"They have not put anything on the table. Only a twisted report, not because it was badly done, but because of the question that is asked," said the spokesman for Podemos, Carlos Meca. And it is that, contrary to what was approved a week ago in the Board of Directors of the Centers, what the auditor was asked is not whether the Strike Committee's demand violated the state law on budget stability, but simply whether the General State Budget Law "is applicable to the public company".
"If you ask if cows can fly, what are you going to answer?" Meca has ironically said. Both he and the rest of the opposition groups have questioned this report, which dedicates only one paragraph to answering the question posed to the auditor by the CEO of the Centers, José Juan Lorenzo, and which at no time pronounces on the legality of the proposal or on the demands of the workers.
However, both San Ginés and the Minister of Tourism, Echedey Eugenio, have returned this Friday to refer to this report, stating that it says "clearly that there can be no salary increases above what the law establishes in the public entities dependent on this institution." And from there they conclude that what the workers are demanding is "an illegal salary increase." In this regard, it should be remembered that the Strike Committee maintains that they are not asking for a salary increase, but that what was agreed in the collective agreement approved in 2014 and in the guarantee letters that the workers received at that time be fulfilled.
NC also supports the request for the new Plenary Session
The request for an extraordinary and urgent plenary session has been raised during the session that San Ginés intended to hold this Friday, and which had to be suspended because he failed to get the urgency approved. At that time, the spokespersons for the PSOE, Podemos, Partido Popular, Somos and Ciudadanos questioned that the call violated the law, since the president intended to submit to a vote a proposal that he had not informed them of or provided documentation. And they also questioned that other proposals were not allowed to be submitted to a vote to really try to put an end to the conflict in the Centers.
For this reason, they have asked that a new session be convened at that same moment, with a different agenda. "Be brave", they have asked from the different groups, demanding that he set the call for within "one or two hours". Finally, given San Ginés' refusal, what they have done is formally submit the request to the Cabildo Registry. And in addition to the councilors from these five groups, the petition has also been signed by the councilor from Nueva Canarias, Juan Manuel Sosa.
For his part, in the press conference he offered after the failed Plenary Session, San Ginés has advanced that before attending to the request of the majority of the Corporation, he could try to reconvene the same session that has not prospered this Friday. To do this, he would have to renounce convening it as a matter of urgency, given that he needs the urgency to be approved by the majority of the Plenary, but he could do so as an extraordinary session with the deadlines established by law.