The Spanish Confederation of Medical Unions (CESM) and the Andalusian Medical Union (SMA) have called four consecutive days of national strike which start this Tuesday and will end on Friday December 12. These strikes, joined by other unions, are already the third – after the last days of October 3 and June 13 of this year – called to show the rejection of the medical profession to the reform of the Framework Statute which regulates the working conditions of staff of the National Health System (SNS) proposed by the Ministry of Health. The call coincides with the services already stressed and begins to be saturated due to the increase in demand for care in the midst of a crisis escalating incidence of influenza and other winter respiratory viruses.
The CESM has planned concentrations in all Autonomous Communities, as it informed 20 minutes. In Madrid, the Amyts union demanded a demonstration in front of the Congress of Deputies this Tuesday at 10:00 a.m.. From there a planned march will begin towards the headquarters of the Ministry of Health, on Paseo del Prado.
After almost three years of negotiations and more than 60 meetings between the Ministry of Health, unions and strike committees, it was not possible to reach an agreement satisfactory to all parties on a document in force since 2003.
The last meeting between Health and the strike committee was held last Monday, but the ministerial proposal still does not convince the medical profession, which is demanding a Own framework status and differentiated field of negotiation with “his own interlocutors” before the Administration.
According to the CESM, in the last draft sent by the team of Minister Mónica García “on the day of guards as an extraordinary activity, nor guaranteed remuneration above ordinary hours, and that said hours count as time worked for retirement, nor a clear and well-defined timetable to establish their voluntary nature, knowing that This voluntary nature fundamentally depends on the conditions of remuneration and his work”.
“The Administration intends that medical on-call continues to be the mechanism that guarantees complete assistance in the event of insufficient staffing. We are not offered sufficient guarantees so that colleagues are not obliged to continue to have weekly hours of more than 45 hours, since the joker of ‘service needs’ nevertheless remains in force”, they defended in a press release last Thursday.
The doctors refuse to admit what they consider to be “a discriminatory regime of incompatibilities” and refuse that the text includes “the deadly joker of “service needs” which, despite the fact that its application is more demanding, continues to be the tool to subject the medical community to unfair and discriminatory working conditions compared to the rest of the professional categories.
The position of the ministry
The Ministry of Health responded this Thursday in a press release that the draft new Framework Statute integrates all requests that fall within its field of competence. The department headed by Mónica García considers that “it has achieved the maximum possible development on the margins of a fundamental law of the State, articulating a common framework without invading regional competences”, while defending that “blocking the approval of the new Framework Statute due to requirements outside the jurisdictional framework would imply miss a historic opportunity reform awaited for two decades.
The ministry recalled that the draft Framework Statute “cannot detail the operational aspects of internal management, as this would be unconstitutional” and stressed that issues such as specific remuneration (supplements, amounts for guards, night shifts, etc.) depend on each health service and the finance law.
Likewise, he stressed that questions such as specific remuneration (supplements, amounts of on-call duty, night shifts, etc.), early retirement or 35-hour days depend on each regional health service, Social Security or the finance law.
This was decided following the announcement by the trade union organizations represented in the negotiation area – SATSE-FSES, FSS-CCOO, UGT, CSIF and CIG-Saúde – to convene a unlimited strike of all health professionals in the National Health System every Tuesday starting January 27.
During a press conference held this Thursday in Madrid, the organizations explained that they had “no other choice” than to call the strike days, which will take place on Tuesdays of each week, for an indefinite period, once The ministry turns a “deaf ear” to all their attempts to close a text normative whose objective is the common interest of all workers.
As they pointed out, not only did the Ministry of Health not want to move forward in negotiations with the legitimate unions which represent 100 percent of the statutory staff of the SNS, but “the difficult, uncomfortable and dilated maintaining and fueling a parallel negotiation with other organizations outside the negotiation area.
These unions consider that basic salaries should accompany the new staff classification framework of the National Health System. They also aim to lay the foundations of the standard for a “dignified and adequate” working daywhich reconciles the family and professional life of staff, as well as other aspects linked to this essential issue in employment relations, and which allows access to early and partial retirement on a voluntary basis.
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