"According to these reports, we cannot even offer them what we offered them before the strike began." That is what the president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, announced this Tuesday, who has acknowledged that the company's management presented the workers of the Tourist Centers with an offer that would be "illegal".
The new reports were requested by San Ginés just two weeks ago, after the opposition as a whole demanded an extraordinary Plenary Session with a proposal to end the conflict in the Centers. It was the request for that Plenary Session that led the workers to suspend the strike, pending the holding of the session, and also what motivated the request for those reports.
Now, San Ginés has appeared before the media to argue that the opposition's proposal would be "illegal", and that any possible agreement adopted in that Plenary Session would be "null". However, he has also had to admit that one of the conditions that the company was willing to assume before the strike began also violated the State Budget Law.
"They have less than what the management offered"
"Today, with the reports in hand, the workers have less than what the management offered," the president stated during the press conference, in which he particularly attacked his former government partner, the PSOE, and the workers' labor advisor, Andrés Barreto. "They should thank Andrés Barreto, María Dolores Corujo, and Carlos Espino for all this," he said, sending a message to the workers. "Unfortunately for them, legal reports were finally forced from the institution itself, which have revealed that not even what was offered in its day, in the terms in which the offer is written, would be legal," he pointed out at another point in his appearance, after admitting that they already had the "doubt" as to whether that offer complied with the legislation.
What San Ginés has not explained is why he did not request these reports before, to determine whether what the Strike Committee was demanding and what the company offered complied with the law. "Because they have been requested now," he simply replied when this media outlet asked him that question. "You want to put the focus where you want to put it, and I have put it where the important thing is," he replied when asked again why those reports were not requested before.
Regarding the opinion of the Comptroller to which he clung during the strike to argue that what the workers were demanding was illegal, the president has again acknowledged that it was only a "generic" opinion, as La Voz published in its day. And it is that then, San Ginés limited himself to asking the comptroller if the EPEL of the Centers should comply with the state law of budgetary stability, but not if what the Strike Committee was demanding violated or not that law.
San Ginés unsuccessfully tried to take his proposal to the Plenary Session
Now, with the new report requested from the Comptroller's Office - and two others commissioned from the legal services and Human Resources - San Ginés has acknowledged that he will also have to modify the proposal that he himself intended to take to the Plenary Session on September 1. That extraordinary session did not even take place, since the opposition voted against the urgency, as it had not been specified in the agenda what was going to be voted on nor had reports been delivered.
Since then, the president has been stating that he would reconvene that session, but in his appearance this Tuesday he has indicated that he does not know if he will finally do so or not. "And what proposal will he take in case of convening that Plenary Session?" he was asked. "It will be the one that appears on the day it is convened," he snapped without answering the question. What he has confirmed is that, in light of the new reports, it will "obviously" not be "the same" that he intended to be approved three weeks ago.
"We know that the feeling that a worker can be left with, when he has been 20 days without working, when he is being told that now on the table, and legally, what there is is less than what was offered to him before the strike. It is quite hard to digest, and now what we are willing to do is to explore formulas that allow us to achieve that objective, as long as the legal framework is found. But in the terms in which it was raised, it is not possible," said San Ginés.
Asks that "reason prevail"
Regarding the extraordinary Plenary Session requested by the opposition, he has indicated that it will be held on October 9, after exhausting the legal deadlines to convene it. However, he has asked the parties that requested it to "reflect", so that "reason prevails". In addition, he has launched a challenge to them, stating that if the agreement they proposed goes ahead, he will "delegate" the execution of that payment that the workers are demanding "to any of the members of the opposition" who "dare to misappropriate".
Regarding those amounts, one - the one that the company was willing to accept and now claims is not legal either - refers to the transport, laundry and availability bonuses, and to the way of executing the sentence that gave the workers the reason. The other refers to the calculation of the personal supplement they receive.
In his appearance, the president has assured that he is going to extend "a hand to the workers and the unions" and "look for formulas" to resolve the conflict and prevent the strike from being reactivated, which was only suspended pending that Plenary Session requested by the opposition. However, San Ginés has once again attacked the Strike Committee, stating that it is an "artificial conflict", with "political overtones" and "irresponsible". And he has also lashed out especially against his former government partner, of whom he has stated that he is "specialized in jumping overboard and abandoning the ship when there are real problems that affect the people of Lanzarote".
