The high phase of the economic cycle has been reflected in the Canary Islands economy in recent years significantly in tourism, construction, large commercial areas and even in the export sectors ...
The high phase of the economic cycle has been reflected in the Canary Islands economy in recent years significantly in tourism, construction, large commercial areas and even in the export of tomatoes, onions, bananas, etc., favored, the latter, by European subsidies and market reserves.
However, the growth of income in the Canary Islands has not been reflected in the improvement of living standards of large sectors of the population, with unemployment, job insecurity and poverty being the biggest social problems in the Canary Islands.
The employment generated in the Canary Islands in these years of economic growth has a triple consequence on the social structure of the Canary Islands. It is a volatile employment because it is associated with the economic situation of strongly cyclical sectors such as construction, tourism and multiple service activities. On the other hand, it is an unstable employment that far from correcting the temporality increases it. At the same time, temporary employment companies continue to increase the degradation of employment and accentuating its precariousness and rotation.
Employment is subject to a high risk due to work accidents and in many activities it is clearly dangerous for the health of workers due to the lack of political will of the Government of the Canary Islands to demand compliance with the law.
The situation of employment instability is worsened by the deterioration of social protection.
Another serious situation in the Canary Islands is that of rural workers where wages are miserable and workers have to pay the stamp of the Agricultural Social Security. This situation demands the taking of energetic measures with the objective of achieving a fair collective agreement for the sector and its incorporation into the general Social Security system with the social rights of other workers.
On the other hand, the unemployment rate in Spain is one of the highest in Europe and in the Canary Islands the unemployment rate is higher than the national average. It is a problem that affects very
especially young people, women, the long-term unemployed and people with disabilities. If the trend does not change, this means an increasingly large group of people excluded from the system.
A decent job makes one useful to oneself and to society, that progressively develops a culture of work based on knowledge, experience and responsibility.
The alleged state of welfare generated in the Canary Islands in recent years does not correspond to the generation of employment and even less to citizen welfare, since there are large pockets of misery and especially unemployment and precarious employment, a situation more than ratifiable with the indices provided by the Red Cross, Caritas and the Spanish government itself. If apart from this we analyze the consequences of the subsistence of our basic sectors due to lack of competitiveness in their products and the unemployment generated in our population due to the occupation of cheaper foreign labor, we will clearly see what the future will be, both of our economy in general, and of our working population.
This also has collaborationist overtones on the part of the majority unions, since they have been transformed into mere management offices and are based on the receipt of funds for training and employment that in some way do not serve for anything more than to generate expenses to the public coffers, pacify union consciences and maintain the phrase "Spain is doing well" when the reality is totally antagonistic and our workers will be in worse and worse conditions both in employment and in fair remuneration that allows them to live.
Nor is it valid to say that immigrants perform jobs that our workers do not want to perform, since we Spanish workers have built this country by performing all kinds of jobs, yes we have contributed to building others without unemployment and with the need for cheap labor, the same that they now deny us to grant it in exploitation to immigrants, enriching a few and generating tremendous social inequalities, poverty and misery in our citizenship.
The reforming measures of the labor market only lead to greater precariousness and instability in employment, increasing accident rates due to competitiveness, lack of safety, productivity and exploitative working hours. The future holds something worse than what we are currently experiencing and instead of representing the incentive of an integration at all levels in a presumably modern, democratic and civilized Europe, it will take us back to much earlier times and third-world labor and social situations.
SUGGESTIONS
1º Bet on a new model of social welfare in which the priority is employment and economic benefits are guaranteed (public Social Security, educational, health and social services)
2º Increase in productive activity and thus employment. It is about strengthening the most widespread activities in the Canary Islands economy and the emergence of new sources of employment that our archipelago lacks and must have.
3º Promotion of the agricultural, livestock, fishing, commercial and tourist sectors adapting to the new markets and evolving to less aggressive and more balanced forms in the use of natural resources making sustainable development a reality.
4º Industrialization of the Canary Islands economy with the creation of small high-tech companies and the development of new activities required by new social demands.
5º Reduction of energy dependence from abroad through the expansion of the renewable energy sector for which the Canary Islands have natural conditions (Sun and wind)
6º Increase in research and technological development
7º Strengthening and development of the emerging sectors of the environment (recycling of solid waste, fire prevention, care of mountains, roads, etc.) of social welfare or socially useful work (care and attention to children and the elderly, etc.)
8º Support measures for small businesses, social economy entrepreneurs such as cooperatives and labor companies as well as self-employment.
9º Reduction of working hours.
10º Guarantee full unemployment coverage through benefits and unemployment subsidy.
11º Right to a social salary for those who do not have access to unemployment benefits and lack income.
12º Right to training, guidance and insertion actions.
13º It is important to create legal norms that end the gangs of "foreign workers" that increase unemployment and create an uncertain future in our islands and in our children.
14º Every worker must be remunerated with a decent salary for a decent job. Proposal to grant shift changes to married couples who do so in shifts during the day, so that their companies grant them the same work schedule.
15º Grant shift changes to married couples who do so in shifts during the day, so that their companies grant them the same work schedule.
16º Granting Licenses for women for a minimum of three years receiving social salary for it. And to fathers / mothers indistinctly until the child reaches the age of five. This measure will also be granted to single fathers / mothers.
RESIDENCE BONUS.
- It is totally inadmissible and incongruent that Constitutional principles are violated by granting Residence Bonuses to all officials who work in the Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Melilla and have their residence in peninsular Spain, and yet these measures are not applied to all workers who develop their work in the Islands being Canary residents, this implies an unconstitutional and discriminatory comparative grievance.
Fundamentally because we are paying very dearly for the distance from Spain, in addition to the double or triple insularity depending on the cases, which is why:
- We request special tax relief for residents in the Canary Islands, apart from collecting the Residence and Insularity Bonus.
The president
Antonio Leal Aguilar
