The Alicante Provincial Firefighters Consortium’s staff board and the president of the Provincial Council, Toni Pérez, signed a preliminary agreement yesterday, Tuesday June 10th, to facilitate a resolution to the labour dispute that has been dragging on for several months and to allow the next summer to be faced with the necessary guarantees for both this group and the general public.
The preliminary agreement must be approved by the Consortium’s General Assembly of Workers, which has been called for today, Wednesday June 11th, at 10:30 a.m. in San Vicente del Raspeig Park.
If the workforce accepts it, it would open up the potential of working both fixed and mobile summer shifts and face the summer months with certainty.
The staff committee has highlighted that, while signing this preliminary agreement may alleviate the disagreement, it “does not definitively end the conflict, since a consolidated text of the working conditions will have to be negotiated over several years.” Furthermore, the Provincial Council’s request for mediation to improve the administration and optimisation of the Consortium’s resources in order to deliver a competent public emergency service remains.
According to the firefighters’ representatives, the labour dispute over the last 78 days “could have been resolved much earlier” and would have prevented “countless incidents of closed or understaffed fire stations, incomplete crews, lack of command and relief during interventions,” all of which “has endangered the public and the workers themselves.”
“We regret that it took more than two and a half months and several meetings to reach this preliminary agreement, since our willingness to engage in dialogue has been constant and the variations between the initial and final proposals have not been substantial,” according to the board.
According to the statement released by the firefighters’ representatives, “ultimately, the participation of the president, Toni Pérez, and the willingness and work of the deputy for Emergencies, Francisco Cano, were necessary to ensure that, despite the lack of collaboration from the administration’s technicians, this preliminary agreement was finally possible.”
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