The Company Committee of the Art, Culture and Tourism Centers (CACT) has called an indefinite strike that will begin on July 11. According to the president of the Committee, Luis Curbelo, the reason is Pedro San Ginés' refusal to sign the agreement that the workers of the Tourist Centers had been negotiating for two days with an official and a lawyer from the Cabildo.
Faced with a conflict that has been unresolved for more than a year and a half, and San Ginés' refusal yesterday to ratify the terms of the agreement reached these days by the workers with the Cabildo official, the more than 350 workers of the Centers will support an indefinite strike, unless there is a solution before the scheduled date.
Five points on the table
When negotiating the agreement with the official of the First Institution, the workers have put five points on the table instead of negotiating a new agreement in its entirety. Three of them are related to points that are already part of the last agreement, which expired on December 31, 2003, but which, according to the workers, "there are small problems of interpretation that must be corrected."
Another of the points has to do with the request for study aid and perhaps the one that will take the longest to negotiate is a vacation fund. The latter corresponds to a kind of annual bonus that workers intend to raise. Employees are asking for 1,030 euros and it is currently agreed at less than 500 euros.
Audit
The audit of the CACT accounts is one of the most thorny points for those responsible for the management of the centers. "Nobody wants the truth to be known," said Andrés Barreto, a member of the Company Committee, a few days ago, who recalled that there are no audits in INLASA, the Tourist Centers, or the Tourism Board.
Barreto assured that the workers already have in their possession the income data of the Tourist Centers in the five years in which there was no accounting. Curiously, Barreto stressed, practically the same amount was collected in those years as was collected in 2004. The workers reiterated their request for an audit to really know the benefits of the Tourist Centers in recent years. "We don't need any more haggling. We need the audits now," Barreto said.
