24-hour days for two weeks in a row, false controls, blank contracts, payments in b, unsanitary rooms, this is how they define the working conditions of the company Alcor Seguridad fifty workers, who claim compensation. The Prosecutor’s Office, together with the Central Private Security Unit of the Police, have gone after these events until they have managed to seat five managers of the company, based in Galicia but with offices in Asturias and the Canary Islands, among others. others, for whom the Prosecutor’s Office requests sentences of up to three and a half years for a crime against the rights of workers, in a trial that begins today in the Provincial Court of Lugo.
The statements of the witnesses, company workers, are very diverse, although they revolve around similar events. The first of all is the collection of overtime in b. Despite doing hundreds of extra hours – up to 200 a month in some cases – they had to submit personal invoices for the value of the hours in order to collect them. “You are going to have to collect the extra hours under the table”, picks up one of the conversations intervened in the framework of the investigation to which La Vanguardia has had access.
The case began in 2016 with the complaint of one of the workers and as a result dozens of testimonies were collected that supported the suspicions of a practice that USO has also denounced through its lawyer Ismael Franco, who is asking for up to six years in prison to those responsible in an attempt to crack down on “pirate” security companies.
The testimony of M.R. He says that in the job interview they forced him to sign fifty blank pages, without being able to read what he signed. When he started working, with the contract signed, he discovered that the days were 24 consecutive hours “approximately fifteen days in a row.”
In his case, he was assigned to control an explosives company. His position only consisted of a small construction booth. In this he stayed twelve hours straight and then he was moved to another booth for another twelve hours, so as not to record that he was actually there for 24 hours. Thus, up to twenty days in a row. Then they let them rest twelve hours to return to the shift.
One of the positions was in the “Polvorín”, guarding explosive materials, which were kept in the same place where the guard rested and carried out his intimate life.
The main defendant is Carlos Somoza, who appears in the company as a proxy, although according to the prosecutor he worked as a manager. The investigation states that the conditions in which some of the employees worked were “subhuman” and “unhealthy”.
Another witness, J.A.H., explained to the agents what his manager told him: “Look for your life to find invoices.” If not, he wouldn’t get paid, and if he had a problem he would be fired. “This is what it is, if you don’t want to, either you leave or we’ll throw you out,” they told them openly.
According to the Police, the workers did between 50 and 200 overtime hours that were collected in checks or bank statements provided that they had previously submitted invoices to justify the amounts. They were ordered to sign that they had enjoyed the holidays or that they had taken the relevant compulsory courses when, in reality, according to the letter from the prosecutor and the Police, this was not true.
Those responsible for Alcor were aware, as reflected in the summary, that certain ways of maneuvering the company were out of all regulation and that is why they tried to escape inspections. The case states the existing relationship with Ana, a police officer, who alerted them to the inquiries that were flying over the company, as the investigators collect in a conversation between Carlos Somoza and an employee, with the name of Belén: “They told her that they were reviewing the courses and so on, but what Ana gave me to understand (…) is the desire they had for us.”
From the conversations it can be deduced that those responsible were aware that their workers were not taking the compulsory courses nor were they carrying out the mandatory inspections of weapons, as stated in the case: “The only reason they can catch us is because of training”, in relation to the training courses that had not been given, Belén told Somoza. “Tell them that they are going to take their statement and not to mess up,” he snapped.
According to police conclusions, the conversation is related to an investigation that the Oviedo Provincial Police Station had opened on recycling courses and that Alcor workers had not done it and were alerted by “Ana”.
In this network of contacts they also had “Berta”, a mutual worker with whom they worked and provided them with confidential data on the health of the workers that they later employed to “touch their morale”. According to a police report, she is a person who “broke her professional secrecy” to provide reserved data to those responsible for Alcor, which were later used for “actions, coercion or strategies” against workers who were on medical leave.
