Several hundred people have gathered this Saturday in Plaza Sant Jaume in Barcelona to protest the poor working conditions and the lack of resources in education and public health in Catalonia, at the end of a week full of mobilizations of these public services.
Catalonia has experienced three consecutive days of strike: on Tuesday the first of the minority health personnel union Intersindical began, and on Wednesday and Thursday those of the majority unions of teachers, USTEC, and physicians, Metges de Catalunya (MC) took place. , the latter being the one with the greatest follow-up.
This Saturday’s rally, which was the least attended of the week, was called by USTEC and minority unions of all types of health personnel, among them CATAC-CTS, Infermeres de Catalunya, the union of nursing technicians SAE or CSIF .
On the other hand, the Metges de Catalunya protest this Saturday has not participated, which has its own agenda of demands and mobilizations, with the call for another strike on February 1, 2 and 3 after yesterday failing to reach an agreement with the Department of health.
“Education and health, public and of quality”, “What happens? that they privatize too much” or “public money, for public services” are some of the slogans that the concentrates have chanted.
Representatives of the Student Union of Catalan Countries (SEPEC) have also participated in the demonstration, which have called for a general strike, and representatives of temporary platforms, workers in the social and health sector, users of health -such as Marea Blanca- and of the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Barcelona (FAVB).
The nursing assistant and CATAC-CTS representative, Anna Alcalà, has warned the Minister of Health, Manel Balcells, that he cannot solve health problems by agreeing only with doctors. This is how he alluded to the demand of Metges de Catalunya to apply salary supplements only for doctors and other improvements to reduce the care burden outside of the negotiation of collective agreements for all health professionals, something to which the Department of Health at the moment has not agreed and that the negotiation is running aground. “The health problems will not be fixed by agreeing with a single group and if you intend to close this conflict in this way, you will have us on the streets, mobilized and doing the strikes that are necessary,” Alcalà warned.
For her part, the USTEC spokeswoman, Iolanda Segura, has denounced that education and other public services are “underestimated” in the Generalitat’s 2023 budgets, which have not yet been closed by the ERC Government and the PSC. “The Hard Rock, the fourth belt and the expansion of the airport; Are these left-wing policies?” Segura criticized, alluding to part of the PSC’s proposals to be able to consider supporting the budgets.
