The Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) unions have regretted this Thursday the low participation of public workers in the general strike on September 29. In a press conference, union leaders in the Canary Islands, Francisco Fontes (UGT) and Jesús Arteaga (CCOO) stated that participation in the public sector of the Autonomous Community administrations did not reach 15 percent.
According to Arteaga, he perceives that officials are "disenchanted" and that it is presumably due to the fact that Administration workers consider that they have not had the support of the unions, and that they have not felt fairly represented in the face of the salary reduction imposed by the State Government as an anti-crisis measure.
"The reality is that the majority of public employees in the Canary Islands did not go on strike," Fontes said, "and this fact deserves that the union organizations that also represent the public function make a reflection."
The union members recognized that public employees responded "to the minimum." "It seems that the strike was not with them," Fontes said before admitting that a reform of the union model was necessary, where the elected union representatives really defended the interests of the workers and not the individual ones.
"We are not hurt, but we are reflective," he said before admitting that "we have to reflect on various issues such as what type of unionism is being done in the Public Administration, and what are the existing forms of dialogue."
"Painful image"
Another possible cause of the public administration not having massively followed the general strike is the criticism of union releases. "They accuse us that there are many releases, but it must be remembered that the releases are born from the Organic Law of Trade Union Freedom, and from collective agreements; their union hours are transferred from some colleagues to others and it is not acceptable that we pay righteous people for sinners."
Even so, they recognized that some union releases were giving a "bad image" of the organizations and that it is an issue that they will begin to solve regardless of internal pressures.
"Many colleagues are giving a painful image, and it is more than necessary that we put a solution to these issues, not because the employers or Mr. Soria say so - he added - but because we ourselves have realized it."
ACN Press
