The city of Seville already has the necessary special deployment of the Local Police for these Christmas dates, marked by events and crowds, after the disagreements of a large part of the staff with the organization of shifts and overtime … associated with them have sparked raw conflict between police unions and local government, as well as the massive absence of exceptional service officers dictated by the force’s command staff.
This is after the plenary session of the Seville City Council finally approved, last Thursday, the Local Police Christmas Plan document, the configuration of which pitted police unions against municipal government by José Luis Sanz, leading to a situation that has largely overshadowed the future of the first part of the Christmas holidays in the city.
The city thus enjoys complete normality in the police systems of urban traffic controlmonitoring compliance with mobility restrictions and alcohol screening points, among other aspects.
After the important stage of the approval of the Christmas Plan, both at the negotiating table with the unions and in the plenary session, with the casting vote of the mayor who resolved the equality derived from the vote against from the PSOE and Podemos-IU and from the abstention of Vox on this proposal from the local government of the PP, Officers come to cover assigned shifts and the only absences come from duly justified long-term absences, as municipal sources confirmed to this newspaper.
The cost of the Christmas plan
Specifically, the local government defended that its proposal for a new Christmas plan for the local police, cwith 5.6 million euros for agents’ overtimerespected the limits set by the Municipal Intervention, after in May the item of 17 million euros included in the current 2025 budgets of the City Hall for overtime of special services agents was already exhausted.
Because the question is closely related to notorious boom in extraordinary brotherhood outings, shows, sporting events and other public activitieswhich require police prevention and traffic measures from the local police. And “Seville has become a city of events”, as many voices in the municipal sphere agree.
Local police unions did not accept this proposal, warning that it meant fragment reinforcements to concentrate them on certain dayswhile every day of the Christmas calendar is marked by events and a large public, they therefore bet on repeating the plan of the previous Christmas at a cost of almost ten million euros, in terms of emoluments for overtime; an organization worth around eight and a half million euros.
As there was no agreement either at the negotiating table or in the plenary session of the City Council regarding the new Christmas Plan, on November 27, one day before the start of the first phase of the special traffic planning and restrictions designed by the City Council for these dates; The mayor finally decreed level one of the municipal emergency plan; thus making special teams promoted by the organization’s headquarters obligatory.
Despite this, and in a new twist in the conflict, when the first phase of the special traffic and mobility plan began on November 28, the extraordinary trips organized by the Local Police Prefecture were marked by the massive absence of agents assigned to such tasks. Previously, local police unions had urged officers not to support voluntary additional rotations before the Emergency Plan came into effect; due to disagreement with local government over productivity.
The prolonged conflict, with union representatives protesting during the official ceremony of switching on the Christmas lights in the center on November 29 or in front of the Town Hall on December 4, coinciding with the institutional event of Andalusian Flag Day; was thus translated into notable absence of local police officers at key times during the first phase of Christmas planningby not participating in special teams for reasons which must be justified before the Consistory, with disciplinary procedures in case of no-show.
The conflict began to be redirected thanks to a meeting between the mayor and the police unions
The situation began to resolve on December 6, thanks to a meeting between the mayor himself and union representatives of police personnelwhich made it possible to save the initial proposal from the Local Government for the Christmas Plan, while updating the financial amount corresponding to the trips already made and not covered by the absences of the agents. It was ultimately a “principle of agreement” according to Sanz and a “principle for reaching an agreement” according to the unions.
As a result, the negotiation table of the City Council finally approved the aforementioned proposal on the 10th, with the vote in favor of S.Professional indication of the Municipal Police of Spain (Sppme)majority in the body, and the vote against or abstention of the rest of the union forces.
From there, the Plenary City Council finally gave its approval last Thursday to the new Christmas Plan document, withn 4.6 million euros for agent overtime, the first programming phase having already been exhausted with their massive absence from special teams. For this, as has been pointed out, the casting vote of the mayor weighed, to resolve the tie between the 14 councilors of the PP in favor of the document and the same number against the councilors of the PSOE and Podemos-IU; Well, Vox opted for abstention.
Thanks to this approval, the Local Police Christmas Plan has been in force since last Friday December 19, being the first level of the Emergency Plan was deactivated in parallel. whose mayor’s decree was contested by the unions through administrative litigation, so that the last episode of this conflict, resolved in practice fortunately for the city, has not yet been seen.
At least for the moment, because the root of the problem, which is none other than large number of public events and shortage of agents of the Local Police, is still on the table.
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