People who wish to access a municipal electrician position in Amposta (Tarragona) must have a B2 level of Catalan (high intermediate) and demonstrate during an oral exam that they pronounce this regional language correctly without “using phonemes foreign to the Catalan linguistic system” or … falling into the typical mistakes of Spanish speakers who are new to the language, such as, for example, “not muffling the final ‘r’ of infinitives.” This is indicated in the regulations of the municipal competition convened by the town hall, consulted by this newspaper and in which it is indicated that aspiring electricians who do not prove the required mastery of Catalan (oral and written) “will be eliminated from the selection process”.
Catalan civic coexistence (CCC) filed a contentious administrative appeal against the town hall of Tarragona, considering that the bases of the municipal competition which establish this linguistic requirement are “discriminatory” and violate “the fundamental rights included in the Articles 14 and 23.2 of the Constitution”.
“Article 14 establishes that ‘the Spaniards are equal before the law, without any discrimination being able to prevail due to birth, race, sex, religion, opinion or any other personal or social circumstance” and that competition certainly does not respect it”, declared the president of the CCC in statements to this newspaper, Angel Escolano.
In the bases appealing, as Convivencia points out in its complaint, the Amposta town hall It will also penalize aspiring electricians who “do not distinguish between open vowels – present only in the Catalan language – and closed vowels”, those who “do not pronounce the ‘ll’, or those who pronounce the ‘s’ sound in Catalan like a deaf ‘s’ (the Spanish ‘s’).”
“Amposta City Hall takes a Catalan pronunciation test in opposition for an electrician position. If you do not pronounce Catalan well, or if you do so with an Andalusian or Aragonese accent, your exam will be suspended. Discrimination, racism, Andalusophobia… everything. It is unacceptable that this type of discrimination occurs in our country, where all Spaniards should have the same opportunities,” he denounces on the networks. Escolano.
“If you want to become an electrician but you pronounce Catalan with an Andalusian or Aragonese accent, you will be suspended from the exam”
Angel Escolano
President of Catalan Civic Coexistence (CCC)
The entity also considers that the level of mastery required of candidates is “excessive”. “They ask them a B2 level even if they carry out eminently manual work when it would be logical that they require the most basic work (A2 or B1)”, specifies the lawyer.
The head of the entity recalls that in the very bases of the municipal appeal it is specified that the functions of electrician are of a simply “manual” Therefore, “the language requirement has no justification.”
“It appears in the administrative file (pages 2 and 3, corresponding to the literal wording of the terms of the appeal) that the functions of the electrician position are strictly limited to tasks of a manual, technical and support nature: carrying out electrical installation work, repairs, taking care of the equipment, checking the installations, providing support to the brigade and all types of functions. eminently technical typical of the profession”, indicates the contested municipal appeal. The document specifies, as Escolano points out in his lawsuit, that “none of these functions involve maintenance work”. administrative managementwrite reports or prepare documents that require advanced written proficiency in the Catalan language.
It turns out that level B2 is the same as that claimed by the Vic town hall (Barcelona) for his cemetery workers, a demand for which he was reprimanded in October by the Justice. The Dispute Court number 15 of Barcelona declared the foundations of its public competition “null” and ordered the City Hall to begin requiring the “basic” A2 level of candidates. This was a pioneering penalty which for the first time imposed a fine on a municipal council for “exceeding” the language roll.
The judgment, consulted by this newspaper, considers, as in the Amposta judgment, that the required level of Catalan language it’s not necessary develop the required task, which “generates a access barrier with an exclusive effect for those who do not prove this level, constituting direct discrimination based on language.
“This time the braking was excessive”
CCC also filed an appeal this month against the Guardiola Town Hall of Berguedà (Barcelona) for demanding too much Catalan from its lamp players. On this occasion, they must have a C1 level (advanced mastery), higher than B2 and that required by the Generalitat of all its civil servants. “This time, the brakes were excessive,” says the lawyer Angel Escolano in statements to ABC. As in the appeal filed against the Amposta town hall, the CCC considers that requirement C1 is “discriminatory” and “violates constitutional rights”.
“The foundations of this competition seriously undermine the Fundamental right to equal access to the public service, recognized in the article 23.2 of the Constitution Spanish, for having limited access to the places offered to anyone who does not have a certain level of Catalan (which, as we say, is disproportionate and has no relation to the work to be carried out)”, declares the entity in the appeal filed against the Town Hall of Guardiola de Berguedà, consulted by this newspaper.
“Exclusive entry barrier”
The complainant considers that “in the contested bases it is necessary to prove a level of knowledge of Catalan which has no practical relation to the position to be filled and which is higher than that established by the regional legislation itself”. In this sense, Convivencia Cívica denounces that “what the defendant administration is really doing with the contested base is establishing a barrier to entry and an exclusive requirement that prevents disproportionately and widely “Access to the public service for Spaniards who cannot demonstrate a certain level of knowledge of Catalan (in this case C1), without there being any justification and without it being proportional to the requirements of the position proposed, since the existing normative requirement is lower (B1, Basic).”
“Thanks to this language requirement, all Spaniards who do not have the required level of Catalan They will not be able to participate in the call and they will not be able to aspire to occupy positions for this type of work which does not require any administrative task of any kind”, declared the president of the CCC in statements to ABC. He specifies that from the entity “we will continue to monitor the linguistic requirements of the administrations whenever we consider that they violate fundamental rights citizens of Catalonia and violate the Constitution.
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