The CCOO has called this Thursday, May 18, strikes of four hours in each shift in Metro de Madrid with the aim of demanding that the company’s management immediately hire workers to comply with the 120% replacement rate approved in the Law on Budgets of the Community of Madrid.
In a statement, the union points out that the situation is “unsustainable” in some Metro de Madrid groups, due to the lack of staff, and specifies that in the month of April there were a large number of stations without metro personnel in the different shifts work, so there was no person to attend to the users, reports Efe.
Currently, explains Comisiones Obreras, the Community of Madrid Budget Law contemplates the hiring of new workers, through the public employment replacement rate, also regulated in the General State Budget Law, and Metro de Madrid for being an essential service is subject to a 120% restocking fee.
In the year 2022, 332 people could have been hired, but only 205 positions have been covered, postponing the hiring of the remaining 127 people to this year, 2023.
In the year 2023, with the replacement rate of 120%, which has already been approved by the Government of the Community of Madrid, 325 people could be incorporated, but the metro management has transferred them to the representatives of the workers who this year It is only going to hire the same number of people who retire, some 240 people, which would be 85 less than the corresponding number according to the Budget Law.
CCOO points out that adding 2022 and 2023, some 212 more people could be hired before the end of this year.
For the union, “another serious problem is the lack of investment in the Madrid metro, which unfortunately is producing a significant deterioration in reliability in the maintenance that is carried out due to the lack of spare parts” such as, for example, capacitors, resistors, semiconductors of tanks, material for tank cooling, springs for the hooks that connect the trains, brake discs, semi-flanges for reducers or crown union sets, among others.
He adds that 80% of the front windows of the 2000 trains are cracked and there are no spare parts.
The union recalls that more than half of the trains are almost forty years old, and on many occasions, they have to remove parts and spare parts from some vehicles to be able to fix others.
Consequently, according to the CCOO, the number of breakdowns and incidents on trains is increasing.
In the month of April, there were 57 breakdowns on line 5; 42 were registered on line 1, there were 36 on line 6; 34 were counted on line 9 and 32 on line 10.
“It is not admissible that due to a lack of investment or planning, Metro workers cannot carry out our work with the necessary reliability to reduce breakdowns and offer greater availability and quality of the service that we provide to the citizens of Madrid”, emphasizes the union.
