Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 19 Mar. (Europa Press) –
The Federation of Services to the Citizens of the Canarian Workers’ Commissions has raised concerns on Wednesday regarding the state of the technical staff within the General Directorate of Dependency of the Government of the Canary Islands. They reported that there are “unilateral and authoritarian directives” being imposed, which have resulted in “organisational disarray and a significant escalation” in workloads.
In a statement, it was noted that the evaluation and Individual Attention Program (PIA) technical personnel have been reporting how the General Directorate of Dependency is “unilaterally and arbitrarily” increasing the number of assessments and PIAs assigned to the workers on a weekly basis.
Furthermore, they assert that these decisions are made “without the possibility of compensating or remunerating the additional hours” they invest, leading to a backlog of over 6,000 files in the PIA phase, heightened stress and anxiety, continual sick leaves, and resignations within the General Directorate of Dependency.
They highlight that the most recent grievance concerns the team of social workers responsible for implementing the individual care programmes, which, according to the Social Services Law, should allow for an average of 7 hours of work per PIA completed.
Consequently, by October 2024, with just a few months remaining until the contracts for temporary social technical personnel expire, an increase to a ratio of 8 weekly files has been mandated by the General Directorate of Dependency.
This would entail 56 hours of work per week, enacted “without any discussion with the staff or their representatives, nor any compensation for additional hours,” resulting in “a backlog of more than 6000 files within a few months.”
In that same month, they continue, the union section lodged a formal complaint to the Technical General Secretary, indicating that the rise in workloads without compensation for the extra hours constituted a significant alteration of the working conditions for the personnel involved.
They also underscored how this would lead to a “huge and unnecessary” accumulation of files, as technical staff lack the time to conduct visits and produce additional reports within their regular weekly hours, jeopardising “the number of files historically established.”
However, representatives from CCOO state that the Secretary General Technical denied the existence of such a substantial modification in working conditions, leading to the adverse predictions that CCOO had earlier warned about, materialising months later.
