Barcelona's emergency social services denounce the City Council for illegal transfer of workers

Since 2022, half of the 92 employees of the Barcelona Social Emergency and Emergency Center (CUESB) have reported Barcelona City Council to the Social Court for illegal transfer of workers.

The professionals have also filed lawsuits against Progess, the company that currently provides this service, outsourced in parts since 2000. The professionals allege that they provide a service from the City Council (which chooses the profiles, decides schedules and organizes day-to-day life). , in City Hall offices, with a uniform with the City Hall logo, using City Hall computer applications and vehicles labeled with the City Hall's graphic image.

Only the three responsible for the service out of the total of 92 employees are part of the municipal staff.

The demands (between 45 and 50, because some of those who presented them no longer work in the service) seek to incorporate the workers as permanent staff and with the rights of employees of the institution to equivalent jobs.

The group has been demanding improvements for years.

More information

Barcelona's emergency social services ask for job improvements

The CUESB, attached to the Municipal Institute of Social Services, is a service that operates at all hours and every day of the year, serving people in urgent or emergency situations.

They can be victims of gender violence, migrants who arrive in the city, neighbors who have suffered an eviction, an eviction, a fire, relatives of people who have committed suicide or have suffered homicides, victims of accidents or homeless people.

They are also activated during cold or heat waves.

Or in major catastrophes such as the Germanwings plane crashed in the French Alps in 2015, or the Rambla attack in 2017.

Awarded and with great recognition, even internationally, originally and until 1990 the service belonged to the Urban Guard as primary care for social emergencies.

Subsequently, until 2000, it was managed by the City Council.

From there, for eight years it was outsourced in parts, recall the lawsuits filed.

The same texts indicate that it is not known for what “technical justification it was decided to outsource” the service and that its employees “have participated in promotional campaigns and institutional participation of Barcelona City Council.”

Among its professionals there are social workers, psychologists, logisticians or administrators.

Sources from the group of whistleblowers defend that the CUESB should be completely public and that the harshness and pressure of the service lead to a high percentage of sick leave and staff turnover.

“We are the elite of social services with

low-cost

resources .

You cannot be Iberia with Ryanair's conditions,” says one of the employees of the group of complainants.

They assure that if the service were internalized, working conditions would be better, because in outsourcing, subcontractors reduce costs to win the tenders.

They also denounce the overload of work that comes with the paperwork they have to process, the saturation of the boarding houses where people in emergency situations are housed, or that the CUESB provides service to more and more municipalities, 24 currently.

Badalona is an example: many of the families affected by the collapse and eviction of buildings in the Raval neighborhood have passed through CUESB offices.

The complaints, filed in five groups of between nine and 11 employees, are handled by the law firm Col.lectiu Ronda.

The first trial was to have been held in January but was postponed to October.

The second is scheduled for the month of April.

Vidal Aragonés, the plaintiffs' lawyer, summarizes the case like this: "It is a lawsuit for illegal transfer of workers because there is a company involved, Progess, but the one who really manages the service is the City Council."

“The illegal transfer entails precariousness, and in addition a permanent change of contract makes it even more precarious,” he points out and emphasizes that the plaintiffs “are very clear that their precariousness does not come from the salary conditions, but from being able to have the same rights and be part of the institution of service.”

“They do not have the stability of a municipal employee, they have more unstable schedules and a shift regime, and rights in matters such as permits or vacations that are inferior.

Progess in this case does labor management, which is something that by regulation only temporary employment companies can do;

and the City Council reduces costs.”

When asked, the Progess company responded that it will not evaluate the demand because it is not the owner of the service.

On the part of the City Council, municipal sources reject it with the argument that the conflict is judicialized.

“It is a service owned by Barcelona City Council that is provided through an external company that is contracted after a public bidding process,” they point out and add: “The last one occurred recently and the new contract comes into force in the next few years.” weeks, updating the tables of the collective agreement applicable in the field of social action, as well as an increase in personnel.

The work operation of the service is similar to that of other municipally owned services managed externally: it is carried out in council premises with uniforms and vehicles marked by the council, like other services such as street cleaning, for example.

Internalizations during the first term of former mayor Ada Colau

Between 2015 and 2019, in the first term of former mayor Ada Colau, Barcelona City Council internalized several services forced by the CUP municipal group as a condition for approving its budgets.

Workers from three municipal daycare centers that former mayor Xavier Trias had opened with private management, and care and information services for women (SARA and PIAD) became part of the council's staff.

The internalization of employees of the city's public television, Betevé, also began then.

Among the services that have since demanded its internalization are the CUESB and also the SAD, home care workers.

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