Does making a larger airport and operating 24 hours a day mean ending the economic crisis in Lanzarote? Thinking that with the massive arrival of planes, loaded with tourists, we are going to end up giving work to everyone ...
Does making a larger airport and operating 24 hours a day mean ending the economic crisis in Lanzarote? Thinking that with the massive arrival of planes, loaded with tourists, we are going to end up giving work to all the unemployed on this island, would be like believing that, by making the largest runway, the planes would line up to come to Lanzarote.
You may or may not agree on the possible solutions to the deep crisis that is being experienced on the island. There are proposals for all tastes. But for businessmen to come now and put fear into our bodies, with the story that, if we do not urgently solve-build a new runway, "Lanzarote would sink into the most absolute darkness", is like believing that when they built their illegal hotels they did not know that this could not be done.
Analyzing the crisis we are suffering on the island could help us find the keys to possible solutions, try to remedy it or at least cushion its harmful effects, but, along the way, we would get unusual and surprising surprises.
The main crisis that has settled on the island is the lack of work, which has put us with 30 percent unemployment, derived from the international crisis (the crisis in Europe means less tourism) and the real estate boom. In Lanzarote, at the moment, not even the bees are building.
The scandalous request that business leaders are making, with the improvement in all aspects of the airport: terminal, runway and security systems, I do not think that, by itself, will solve the tremendous unemployment problem we have.
Reality shows that the fact that more tourists arrive on the island does not automatically mean that unemployment is reduced. On the contrary, increasing the occupancy level of hotels and apartments, unemployment continues to increase. The proof is what happened in the last two years. In 2009 the occupancy was 65 percent, with 15,887 unemployed; while in 2010, with an occupancy of 70 percent, we have 16,243 unemployed. We increased occupancy by 5 percent and unemployment continues to increase! If anyone understands it, please explain it to me.
These businessmen must be deceiving us in some way if they have more tourists in their hotels every day, why are there more workers in the unemployment line every day?
Improving airport communications will always be good for us, but I am convinced that if they put some effort into improving the level of hiring they have in their companies, I do not think it would be necessary to unveil the residents of Playa Honda.
Any worker, ask those in the hotel industry, knows that they are working below the minimum in personnel, that they are not enough to give a level of quality and service to the client, that the hiring of temporary work companies is abused and that, in some cases, they enslave the worker, because they know the level of need that exists in the street.
The evidence is that the worker is at the mercy of the employer. The unions are neither there nor are they expected. Labor abuse is the order of the day. Where there should be three, there is one. The bad thing is that the one is asked for what three are.
The other circumstance is that, in just over 10 years, we have more than doubled the population of the island, going from having, in 1998, 65,503 inhabitants by right, to 2010 with a population of around 141,500 inhabitants. 75,997 more souls on the island in 12 years. As Celia Cruz would say: there is no work for so many people.
Construction called many proletarians, there was work for everyone. But now, what do we do? Business leaders only contribute the same recipe: more fillings, more cement.
For much airport, for much tourist, I doubt that 16,243 jobs will be created, which is the number of dramas we have in Lanzarote. Why is the same concern not shown for the port of Los Mármoles? Perhaps it will be that the cruise passengers come in the morning and leave in the afternoon, and do not sleep in their hotels?.
