Road cleaning and refuse collectors have threatened to go on strike if their demands are not resolved. In a letter sent to the Orihuela council on Thursday the Works Committee say they have been asking the councillor for Urban Waste, Dámaso Aparicio, for months to “fix safety and procedural issues and to refurbish the premises from which they operate.
They say that the Department has also ignored the report issued by the Labour Inspectorate at the end of March in which it said that the conditions out of which they operate are “unacceptable.”
This document shows that the temperature in their mechanical workshop exceeds the permitted temperature, causing “heat stress that could result in irreversible damage to health.” It also points out, among other things, that there is “a risk of electrocution” because of inadequate wiring.
The report gave the council a month to adopt measures that, according to the workers, have not been resolved. The workers consider that the problems “persist” and have not been completed because of the ill feeling that exists between the councillor for Street Cleaning and RSU, Dámaso Aparicio, and the councillor for Patrimonio and Human Resources, Rafael Almagro.
They say that Aparicio told them earlier this month that it was not up to his department to carry out the repairs to the premises that suffer from deficiencies, but the work should be done by the Patrimono area.
Fed up with the situation in which the councillors are continually “passing the ball to each other” the workers have announced that they are seriously considering action that could result in a strike during the summer months, which would affect the service provided on the Orihuela Costa and in adjoining villages.
