Maria Elena Escudero has entered the press room of the LAB syndicate sitting in a wheelchair, pushed by her husband, who has been arrested. In this situation, chronic fatigue has been exacerbated since 2020. Tomorrow you will have to go back to work, clean up Mendillorri's school. “I only move from bed to chair and chair to bed, and all thanks to the help of my partner,” Maria Elena says. “As of tomorrow I am obliged to push the cleaning cart, I will have to pass the broom through the classrooms, clean the tables and chairs… will you explain how I do it?” Osasunbidea’s report acknowledges him “the limit of permanence in fixed positions without support/help.” “Likewise, these pathologies suppose a constant experience of pain and a fundamental influence on the emotional level”. However, the Social Security and the health surveillance service of the company Zaindu, which works, do not grant him recognition of permanent incapacity and have refused to leave.

María Ángeles Andrés moves on a platform, has a recognized disability of 56% and a person goes to his home to help him in his day to day, shower and basic activities. In spite of everything, Patxi Larraintzar goes to school every day. “I let go and move in the cleaning cart,” explains María Ángeles. “I can’t bend over, I can’t clean the tables and I’m terribly afraid when it comes to cleaning the stairs, because I think I’ll fall.” Osasunbidea’s medical report acknowledges that it is “a patient with significant limitations in mobilizing and performing activities in everyday life due to osteoarticular pathology” and warns that “he needs a wheelbarrow to walk” (taka-taka). However, the medical inspection of the Social Security did not grant her the perceptive incapacity, and then the health surveillance service Quirón Preventivo, through a report of 19 August 2024, forced the cleaning worker to return to work, “being able” with limitations.

In the opinion of Imanol Karrera, head of the LAB trade union, those responsible for social security and business surveillance services “would not be very accommodating and decided to force the two cleaners to work with the help of a walker and a wheelchair.” The career has made responsible for this “inhumane, shameful and past centuries” behavior of the “manipulated” discourse that CEN Navarran businessmen make about absenteeism at work.

The LAB trade union has warned that social security is worsening the quality of life of workers until workers are forced to work in deplorable conditions, as are these two cleaners. “Guided for purely economic reasons, the Social Security medical inspection has the order not to facilitate disabilities and, therefore, year after year the lives of workers are deteriorating,” added Karrera.