A firefighter wins a first trial against the Madrid City Council: you cannot be activated for 24 hours without charging overtime

Judicial blow for the Madrid City Council.

The contentious-administrative court number 29 of Madrid has agreed with a first fire officer who denounced that they did not pay him the overtime that he considered he was owed because he had been "activated 24 hours" since the beginning of the pandemic. , even when the state of alarm was lifted.

In total, two years.

This meant that he had to have his cell phone on all the time, even on his days off, and he could not go too far from the community, not even on vacation, since in 40 minutes he had to be at his place of work (60, if justified). if he was called.

The firefighter calculated, following the law that includes the obligations and duties of officials, that the Consistory owed him about 100,000 euros.

And the judge has given him the reason,

According to the sentence to which EL PAÍS has had access, which can still be appealed: “Because it is working time, the time on duty is non-face-to-face availability.”

That is, for having been activated between March and June 2020, the City Council must pay him 20,739.88 euros, so the officer hopes that when the second ruling comes out of the remaining time that he has been in that situation (between June 2020 and March 2022) the amount you should receive is what you originally estimated.

This extra payment caused by the refusal of the head of Emergencies to close an order that he gave at the beginning of the pandemic, can cost the José Luis Martínez-Almeida City Council dearly.

There are 83 affected ―including officers and non-commissioned officers―, of which 20 had already claimed the same as the first officer and are awaiting trial.

"Now, with this sentence, there is a flood of complaints that follow the same steps," admit sources from the fire department.

The total figure that the City Council may be obliged to disburse can reach eight million euros.

According to Consistory sources, the legal services are studying "the current judicial resolution and the appeal is going to be prepared", since they have a period of 30 days.

More information

Firefighters in Madrid sue the City Council for having to be "activated" 24 hours a day for two years and without vacations

The officers and non-commissioned officers have been “reachable and available” for two years, 24 hours a day, without exception, and, therefore, unable to leave the Madrid region.

Everything was due to an instruction from the Director General of Emergencies, Enrique López Ventura.

The reason given: the pandemic.

Being an essential service, the high office, on which the Fire Department of the capital and Samur-Civil Protection depend, issued an order on March 15, 2020 (which was later extended on several occasions) to require that these firefighters be 365 days a week. year "activatable" for what could happen.

It did not matter that the state of alarm ended on May 9, 2021 and that doctors, nurses, health technicians, politicians, including the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, or the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez,

loosen their agendas and be able to leave the Madrid region in their free time.

These firefighters couldn't do it.

And he did not care if they asked the boss in writing to please close that instruction when the state of alarm ended.

Until this newspaper published the complaint of those affected last February.

It was then that López Ventura ordered that order to be closed.

Just two years had passed.

The director of Emergencies defended himself then, before closing the order, denying the major.

He argued that it was an essential service in an extraordinary situation and that, of course, the Consistory did not have to pay anything.

“The Fire Department of the Madrid City Council prevents such a measure for officers in the face of an existing obligation, whether or not there is a pandemic, which has already been established since 1984 by regulation,” he said then.

That, however, was a half-truth.

In pre-pandemic times, Madrid firefighters were on duty 24 hours a day in shifts and had a corporate phone for those days.

That way they can afford to turn it off when they're releasing.

However, during those two years, if they were called and did not show up at their workplace any day of the week and within the estimated time, they could commit a serious or very serious disciplinary offense that is sanctioned with the "firm suspension of functions". ” which can carry sanctions of up to six years without employment or salary, according to the disciplinary rules that regulate the obligations of public employees, such as firefighters.

The complaints, in any case, came some time later.

According to several of those affected, the fire officers and non-commissioned officers initially complied with the instruction because they considered that in an exceptional situation, the measures should be exceptional.

But when the health situation relaxed for everyone and both their superiors and the top political leaders could afford to disconnect, they found themselves tied down by an order that their superior refused to close.

The first thing that several affected did was to request in writing the closure of the instruction.

This newspaper had access to the response of the Director of Emergencies himself to several of the firefighters, who, before filing the lawsuit in court, decided to register an appeal for reconsideration, qualified as an appeal.

That happened a year and a half ago.

In that response, the head of the Fire Department insisted that it was an essential service and that, of course, extraordinary guards were not going to be paid.

“It is one thing to attend to claims outside the work shift and quite another is the performance of the service consisting of being located and available in a situation that can be activated,” López Ventura stated to this newspaper in February.

“In no case is any financial compensation established.

The way to compute this part of the guard that is part of their ordinary working day is established and extraordinary remuneration is not paid, ”he insisted in a note sent to this newspaper through a spokesman for the City Council.

"In the agreement on working conditions for the staff of the Technical Scale of the Fire Department, the payment of extraordinary shifts to personnel who are reachable without providing service is not regulated."

Sources from the Emergency area now add that the Municipal Emergency Territorial Plan of the Madrid City Council (PEMAM) continued to be activated long after the state of alarm at the orange level, and that is why the instruction was kept open.

The orange level constitutes the first level of activation, in the event of a materialization of a risk or emergency situation that supposes an extraordinary deployment of municipal troops.

"Two years in a row is not something extraordinary," defend several affected.

The crux of the conflict therefore focused on one question: should one pay (or charge) for being always available?

The contentious-administrative court number 29 of Madrid thinks so, and this is reflected in its sentence.

Now, the City Council has 30 days to appeal.

And predictably, it will be the Supreme Court that decides, without going through the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid, since the judge has applied article 86 of the law of contentious jurisdiction, understanding that the sentence contains a doctrine that can be seriously harmful for the general interests and that there are more affected than can adhere to the ruling.

If confirmed, "the stubbornness" of the Director of Emergencies, according to the words of several of his subordinates, could cost the public coffers about eight million euros.

The Spokesperson, Security and Emergencies Government area, directed by Inmaculada Sanz, has not wanted to answer whether it will demand any kind of responsibility from López Ventura.

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