The workers who keep the largest nursing home in Spain running are fed up with getting paid late. More than a hundred of the 450 members of the staff of the Santa Rita Home gathered this Monday, February 27, 2023, at the gates of this nursing home in Puerto de la Cruzwhich serves more than 500 users, to demand that they pay their salaries between the 1st and 5th of each month, and to demand, through their union representatives, the resignation of the managing director, Thomas Villar. They dedicated songs to the head of the foundation that manages the residence, such as “our manager is incompetent!” either “Manager, listen, Santa Rita is in the fight!”. After collecting four of the last ten salaries late, they warned again that they are one step away from standing up: “If this is not fixed, strike, strike, strike!”.
The rally more than doubled attendance at the last protest, which was last September, and will be repeated every day 6, in the event that the subsistence wages that are paid, of just 900 or 1,000 euros, are not paid in the first five days of each month. All unions that are part of the Company Committee (CCOO, UGT and Intersindical Canaria) supported the protest and allowed themselves to be seen and heard with flags, whistles and horns. The person in charge of the Federation of Health of the Social and Health Sector of CCOO in Tenerife, alexis rodriguez, regretted that the staff “continue to suffer the same errors and the same inability as last year, with salaries that were paid this month on the 17th, with no guarantee that this will not be repeated in March. And that is generating very complicated situations for many colleagues. The inability of the manager is manifest and we continue to insist that both the Cabildo and the Company Committee must enter the board of trustees that manages the foundation ».
For Rodriguez, Tomás Villar is “the maximum person in charge that this problem has no solution and that the entry of the representatives of the workers and the Cabildo into the board of trustees continues to be blocked. Despite the fact that the insular administration has 374 concerted places, 73% of the population of the center, which means an income of 456,000 euros per month, almost 6 million euros per year. Its viability depends on that and they veto the entry of the Cabildo. It doesn’t hold up.”
Rodríguez also warned that the manager, “incapable of fixing all the conflicts that have occurred,” nor is he the right person to lead the adaptation of Santa Rita to the change of model in social and health care, which advocates smaller centers. This is a non-profit foundation, so it is not understood that the accounts are not clear and that they are afraid of being transparent, “he said.
Fran Bauteof Canary Islands Inter-unionstressed that “something as basic as collecting salary in a timely manner seems revolutionary in a foundation that is supposed to have solvency and assets. This is the result of disastrous management and a castling that is increasing by the Management of Santa Rita, whose board of trustees must be democratized and avoid obscurantism and closure. Baute was convinced that “Villar is part of the problem, he is the problem itselfso he and his accomplices in the board of trustees must allow the relief ».
«When all the agents that intervene in Santa Rita we walk in the same direction and focus on inoperative management, it cannot be that we are the kamikazes. There is a kamikaze, who walks in the opposite direction and also does not listen, who is Mr. Villar“, affirmed Baute, who wanted to recognize the dedication of some workers who “despite receiving payment on the 17th have continued to carry out their work with absolute professionalism».
