A single Internet line and a telephone are shared by the three permanent workers of the General Directorate of Labor and Industry of the Government of the Canary Islands, which united all its services in new facilities in Lanzarote on January 25. Among them, the Canarian Mediation and Arbitration Service (SEMAC), with a single person in charge of processing more than 60 files in a single day, on Mondays. On this day, a labor conciliator comes to the island from Las Palmas to mediate in meetings between plaintiffs and defendants. This Monday, the users, accommodated on the benches outside due to the lack of space in the offices, entered with up to three hours of delay.
Delays that are the usual tone, according to the professionals who come to SEMAC every week. Like Andrés Barreto, trade unionist and labor advisor, who describes the new offices that were created to respond to the high number of labor conflicts on the island as a "joke." "Today we have 70 trials. It is one in the afternoon and 50 percent of the trials have yet to finish," he commented at the doors of the premises where he was waiting his turn this Monday.
"This place is even smaller than the other one (in the Cabildo)," comments another of the professionals shortly after signing the lack of agreement of a conflict at 1:30 p.m., when his appointment was scheduled for 11 a.m. "The room where conciliation takes place is small, there is no privacy to conciliate. There is more than one company conciliating," describes the labor advisor of a private company, who assured that during the morning more than 50 people had accumulated waiting outside.
In addition to the lack of space in the conciliation and waiting rooms, users and professionals complain about the lack of privacy in the administrative part, since the employees' work tables are separated by little more than two meters and they emphasize how delicate the issues that are exposed are. "We are inconveniencing those who come to solve industry problems and work problems," said Andrés Barreto.
The officials prefer not to speak, but the truth is that in addition to the resigned faces of the users, the only permanent employee of Trabajo, in charge of writing the minutes of the trials, was typing frantically on the computer during Monday morning, with an expression of "overwhelm", while four of the people involved in the conflict - two sitting and three standing - surrounded the administrative table. A situation that earned the understanding of the users who were queuing at the doors of the office. Although those who came to SEMAC for the first time claimed not to understand the delays in their procedures.
According to the Ministry of Employment, Industry and Commerce, the change of headquarters of the offices of the General Directorate of Labor in Lanzarote was decided when "it was found that the premises in which these services were provided did not meet the necessary conditions for it." However, for users and professionals, it still does not meet them and they demand solutions. Andrés Barreto has proposed a strike to his colleagues until some solution is taken, because he considers that the situation of both officials and users is "inhuman".
