Unions warn of years of conflict ahead

The representatives delivered a jointly signed letter to government headquarters in Palma addressed to Balearic President José Ramón Bauzá. The contents of the letter essentially rejected government policy which has been introduced during the first 100 days of power, and demanded that there be a return to the negotiating table on matters of employment contracts, pensions and social benefits. “Undemocratic” Katiana Vicens, the General Secretary of the Workers Commission said that those in power only had the right to govern through “social dialogue”. Without it, she warned, the rulers and ruled will be in a permanent state of conflict “which no one wants,” particularly at a time of economic crisis.

Vicens said that if the government is going to continue in the undemocratic way in which it has begun, doing nothing to improve income for the vast majority of working people of the Islands, there is evidently going to be industrial action this autumn.

Manuel Pelarda, the UGT's Union Action Secretary went even further. “We are entering a stage of three years of permanent social conflict,” he declared. “The government have an overall majority and the Official Bulletin of the Balearic Islands (BOIB) but the streets belong to us.” Pelarda said that the unions are rejecting outright the government's economic rescue package which includes cutting union representation in government posts. “In the end,” said Pelarda “this is just the thin end of the wedge. What we are in fact going to see is the loss of thousands of jobs in health, education and social services.” He claimed that the economic rescue package supposedly only talks about cuts rather than stabilising people's incomes, or providing some kind of guarantee that working conditions are not going to deteriorate further.”