The days are tense in public-private cooperation companies in the health sector in Madrid. The Jiménez Díaz Foundation, the corona joy of the Quirónsalud hospital group, celebrated at the start of a management meeting with worker representatives where, according to the Obreras committees, its members were indignant at the “attacks” of the director.
CC OO assures that the director, Javier Arcos Campillo, linked the workers’ protest campaign started on November 27 with the sabotage that this hospital has suffered over the last “two or three weeks”. The union assures that its representatives have no connection with these acts of vandalism and that the words of the maximum position of this Quirón center amount to co-action and intimidation, for which it is studying legal action. Management assures, through a spokesperson for the Community Health Council of Madrid, that the four other unions present in the committee will not take these concerns into account, including the UGT, whose representative Pedro Montero, president of the works council, declares: “Les hizo una critique y punto”.
The shock occurs when the lights are placed on the Madrid sanitary model. Ribera Salud ordered to slow down its attention to earn more money at the Torrejón hospital, public but managed by this company, as revealed by EL PAÍS. Quirón runs three hospitals with a similar formula and owns Jiménez Díaz, who is also paid for his service to public health.
The meeting, attended by CC OO sources, began to deal with ordinary topics, but the official surprised those present when he addressed the theme of the worker demonstrations that took place on November 27 in the Quirón hospitals on the public network, first in Villalba and a week later in Móstoles. It was the first time that this meeting occurred after the start of these movements under the slogan “we are not slaves, we are professionals”. The union had announced that after Navidades it would demonstrate at the gates of Jiménez Díaz.
The director, Arcos Campillo, took the floor to reprimand CC OO members because, according to union sources, “the patients copied and imitated the proclamations,” and specifically referred to slogans such as “Quirón maltrata” or “Quirón enslaves” their workers. They claim that their protests have fueled a “climate of violence against the institution, patients and professionals”, add these sources, and list a series of incidents that have occurred over the “last two or three weeks”. He was referring, according to these sources, to some paintings in the baths against Ayuso; the aggressiveness of a patient who escaped from a nurse; and the rupture of a gas main which left the center without heat for several hours.
The director añadió, told the sources of CC OO, following: “There are serious things that we cannot control, but there are things that happen inside and that we can”. In the meantime, I put on a screen several photos of the incidents followed by a photo of CC OO representatives at the hospital during one of the recent demonstrations, according to this union’s sources.
The workers reacted with outrage. They responded that demonstrating is a right and that they accuse them of these alleged sabotages. The manager recognizes this right but specifies that he also has the right to demonstrate his non-compliance. He also assured that he was not accusing them of vandalism. “Windly yes,” replies an assistant.
The union published a press release this Thursday afternoon in which the director’s comments were written as “infundios and lies”. “CC OO uses the legitimate means that allow the legislation and the constitutional framework to denounce the precariousness of work that supports the approved hospitals of Madrid. But the union never uses this type of actions and vandalism. hooligan to demand workers’ rights.
“Confounding and coercing our representatives in the purest gangster style is only a sign of degradation in the behavior of the leaders of the Quirón Group of the Jiménez Díaz Foundation,” adds the statement, which indicates that they are studying legal actions and a fever concentration that has not yet been closed.
The Health Council affirms that the management of Jiménez Díaz received the support of representatives of other unions present at the meeting, who do not agree with the fact that a certain form of coercion was exercised and affirms that the management did not attribute the acts of vandalism to the nadie. The unions satse le CSIF han hecho esa valoracion.
He also believes that the UGT is asserting, through Pedro Montero, president of the works council, that no other member of its section present will appreciate threats or coercion. “It’s not me who defends this model of common sense,” he begins by saying, “but the manager is a decent and kind man, he’s not Al Capone. Comparing him to a gangster is a bit wrong. What he did was show his discomfort with a series of mottos that discredited the group.”
The Council affirms that the minutes of the meeting will clearly indicate that there is nothing abnormal in the center: “The management of the Jiménez Díaz Foundation says that the minutes of the meeting are impeccable, only missing a signature from the UGT, which we hope will be produced soon and in this way it will be completely closed,” said a spokesperson. “The meeting, which was recorded, was presented and recorded before a notary.”
CC OO says that last month it chose to call for protests after the paralysis of negotiations started in March to improve working conditions. It is surprising that the workers of the three public hospitals managed by Quirón (Villalba, Valdemoro and Rey Juan Carlos de Móstoles) are subject to the private health agreement, with conditions worse than those in force for 100% public hospitals. Jiménez Díaz certainly has an agreement comparable to the latter, but according to CC OO the working conditions are not respected.
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