The two trade unions that have been calling on doctors in the Canary Islands‘ public health service to go on an indefinite strike from this Friday have appealed to President Fernando Clavijo to get involved in this dispute and are demanding that they be allowed to have their own staff representation.
«Fernando Clavijo would do well to get directly involved in resolving this conflict, given the total and complete absence of his Health Minister, who is occupied with other pre-election matters,» state the Doctors‘ Union and the Medical Staff Union.
On Friday, the two trade unions published a detailed document setting out the reasons why they continue to reject the offer put forward by the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS), which includes pay rises and shorter on-call shifts.
Canary Islands: Trade unions criticise the negotiations and the UGT agreement
The trade unions have criticised the SCS for the «peculiar way» in which they believe it is handling these negotiations, and have reminded it of the cost to the autonomous community of the eight days of strike action held between March and June: 400 million euros.
«This provides an interesting historical perspective, as well as offering clues as to the questionable negotiating skills of those in charge of the Canary Islands‘ public health service,» they say.
In the document, they set out, one by one, their differences with the Canary Islands Government and discredit the agreement reached by the UGT trade union on behalf of the workers themselves, the doctors, with the director of the Canary Islands public health service, Adasat Goya. In their view, it «does not meet 70 per cent» of their expectations in this labour dispute.
Doctors are calling for their own representation in dealings with the health service
The two trade unions emphasise that their disagreement with the SCS «runs deep» and stems from their first and one of their most important demands: that the Staff Committees be reorganised so that doctors in the public health service are not represented collectively alongside other healthcare workers, but have their own, specific representation.
«Under no circumstances is it intended that doctors should have a say in negotiating their specific working conditions directly with the Administration. Nor is there any intention of allowing even the reorganisation of the current Staff Committees, so that, without prejudice to the establishment of others for different categories of SCS staff, doctors and medical practitioners may have their own channel for representation and direct dialogue with the Administration», state the Medical Union and SEMCA.
They emphasise that this is not a minor discrepancy, but a fundamental one: «This is what explains the numerous calls for doctors‘ strikes. The Canary Islands Government leaves no other avenue for legitimate negotiations apart from the strike committee.»
For the Doctors‘ Union and SEMCA, this is one of the key differences between them and UGT: the fact that, in their view, the latter union does not want «doctors to have their own channel for negotiation» outside the general framework of the Staff Committee.
Doctors' strike: Organisers reject political accusations
The organisers of this strike also reject the suggestion that their protest is ‚political‘, as they believe it is the Canary Islands Government that is trying to make the strike ‚take on that character‘.
«It is not we doctors who have waited until the run-up to the elections to put forward our grievances, which have been ignored by the Regional Ministry of Health for over a year. It is the negligence of those in charge of healthcare in the Canary Islands and of the Canary Islands Government that has caused all the pent-up anger amongst the doctors and medical practitioners to boil over in response to the way they are trying to impose a plan on them which, under no circumstances, has involved their participation or taken their views into account,» they argue.
The dispute over healthcare could be defused if both sides were to make concessions
The strike organisers have warned the Canary Islands Government that it is still «in time to defuse this dispute if it begins to understand the reasons behind it» and have offered to «de-escalate the pressure tactics» if they perceive a «genuinely constructive attitude towards reaching a fair agreement» on the government’s part.
«There is a huge gulf between what the director of the SCS is seeking to impose on doctors through an agreement drawn up without their input, and the genuine demands of the medical and healthcare profession. Furthermore, another reality is that Adasat Goya has shown that he lacks the negotiating skills required to deal with a dispute of this magnitude,» they add.
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