Unions warn that Canal Gestión is dismantling its staff and intends to abandon the service this year

They emphasize that the company in charge of water management in Lanzarote has "drastically" reduced the number of employees, "going from 280 to 207".

October 28 2024 (15:59 WET)
Updated in October 29 2024 (09:46 WET)
Headquarters of Canal Gestión, the company in charge of water management in Lanzarote. Photo: José Luis Carrasco.
Headquarters of Canal Gestión, the company in charge of water management in Lanzarote. Photo: José Luis Carrasco.

The unions Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) and Intersindical Canaria (IC) have publicly denounced this Monday "the dismantling of the staff" of the company in charge of water management in Lanzarote, Canal Gestión, suspecting that the company intends to abandon the service at the end of this year".

As La Voz exclusively reported, the parent company of Canal Gestión, Canal Isabel II of Madrid, is meeting with different companies to delegate the management of the integral water cycle to a third private entity.

The three union groups have made an "urgent" call to the parties involved to "put all means at their disposal for the immediate improvement of the integral water cycle, using the highest possible procedure. It is of extreme urgency and necessity for the survival of our island", he added.

"The water crisis in Lanzarote and La Graciosa is an emergency that cannot be ignored", they continued, while pointing out that "it is necessary for Canal Gestión Lanzarote and the Water Consortium to assume their responsibility and work together to implement lasting solutions. The survival of our island depends on it".

The unions have highlighted that "in a context of growing uncertainty and disregard on the part of the company's management, the workers of Canal Gestión Lanzarote have demonstrated exceptional behavior and responsibility in the performance of their duties".

Despite the "drastic reduction" in the number of employees, "which has gone from 280 to 207, the workers of Canal Gestión Lanzarote continue to strive to guarantee the supply and quality of water for the residents of Lanzarote and La Graciosa". This effort is even more significant, considering that "retirements and leaves have not been covered and new hires have been limited to office staff and department heads, without reinforcing the critical water production and distribution departments".

The three unions have pointed out that "the dedication of the employees is evident in their ability to operate with increasingly limited resources". In production, for example, they have assured that "more infrastructure is being attended to, which must be maneuvered, with 80% less personnel at the cost of unsustainable response times". Meanwhile, they added that "the situation in distribution is even more serious, where the reduction of personnel assigned to attend to various service tasks has suffered a reduction of equal magnitude, with what that is meaning for the quality of the service".

Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) and Intersindical Canaria (IC) have added that "the maintenance department has been practically dismantled, making it impossible to improve and maintain infrastructures, machinery and equipment".

While sanitation "has been outsourced due to lack of resources and personnel" and purification "still does not respond to agriculture and environmental respect that it owes to a biosphere reserve", in addition to the decrease in the availability of face-to-face and telephone assistance in the central offices and in rural areas. The three entities show that these "are just some examples of the disastrous situation".

This work context is aggravated by "the progressive deterioration of the facilities, which has resulted in more frequent and prolonged water cuts for the residents. The new production plants installed have not managed to increase water production due to these deficiencies, a critical problem on an island where the number of subscribers has tripled".

 

The management does not want to meet with the unions

Despite these challenges, the unions have added that "the workers continue to offer the best of themselves, maintaining the essential service of the integral water cycle". However, the management's refusal to meet with the workers' representatives and "the lack of communication about the rumors of abandonment of the service have generated great uncertainty and concern".

The three unions have added that "the unprecedented job insecurity, with dismantled and privatized services, and a minimum quality of service, together with a citizenry that suffers the greatest precariousness of the service in history, facing an imminent danger of shortage due to overload, deterioration and lack of solutions to fundamental problems such as losses and obsolescence of the network".

Break in a road in Arrecife. Photos: Provided.
Arrecife demands an external audit of Canal Gestión regarding the problems in the sewage network
Headquarters of Canal Gestión, the company in charge of water management in Lanzarote. Photo: José Luis Carrasco.
Canal Gestión considers transferring control of water in Lanzarote to another company
Aerial view of Puerto del Carmen
The Citizen Water Board denounces that tourist areas are free from supply cuts
Most read