The workers who collect rubbish in Orihuela will go on strike. The decision was made at a general assembly at the municipal solid waste disposal site in the Puente Alto industrial park. About 80% of the workers were there.
CCOO, UGT, and CSIF are the three main unions that represent workers on the Street Cleaning and Urban Solid Waste works council. They have reported “very serious deficiencies” that have been going on for more than a year, but neither Councillor Rocío Ortuño nor any City Council representative has said anything about it. So, they put several measures to a vote, and everyone there agreed with them. These include starting the process to call a workers’ strike and setting up basic services.
For all of this, a period of at least 10 days is being looked at. This is the time that the local government would have to come to an agreement.
According to city officials who talked to this newspaper, the City Council will meet with the workers’ representatives.
The unions have said that “the service is getting worse and worse and is becoming unmanageable.” They asked to meet with Ortuño but haven’t heard back in months.
Employees are unhappy since the pay rise isn’t happening and they’ve been waiting for overtime compensation for months. Also, an old collective bargaining agreement that has been challenged and is still in effect is being used, and collective bargaining has been on hold for more than six months.
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They also talk a lot about the lack of staff. More than 40 employees were let go after the summer season, and no one was hired to take their place. This means that the remaining staff has to work longer hours to make up for the lost labour.
Also, the rubbish trucks and other service vehicles are old and break down a lot, leaving stains and bad smells on the streets. Unions say that most of them don’t get fixed because the repair businesses don’t get paid and won’t accept responsibility.
In 2025, workers did not have to have medical exams, and the insurance policy for this department has not been renewed since 2023. Regulations on preventing occupational risks are still being broken, such as loading heavy items without the right tools and people, and rear-loading trucks with only one operator, etc.
The expired insurance policies of the fleet of vehicles responsible for cleaning and picking up trash, which were driving around without mandatory civil liability insurance, caused another strike in 2023, just before Holy Week. The strike was resolved at the last minute after 24 hours without service.
So, in addition to the strike, they plan to tell the Labour Inspectorate about the unsafe conditions in Occupational Risk Prevention and the failure to pay wages.
They have also said that the cleaning contract for the offices is over, which is why the toilets haven’t been cleaned in weeks.
This department is also the only one in the whole City Council that hasn’t been included in the professional career path of the new RPT “without any explanation.”
All of this has an effect on the service being offered, which is getting a lot of complaints from locals. This is one of the primary difficulties according to the City Council’s own opinion barometer.
Author: Derek Appleton
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