How many workers have been out of work this year?

M. Yanci: We have left six people trying to work, and others who have not hired have already found other jobs or have been left unwilling to go on here.

J. Ibarguren: And we too, seeing what we've seen, are taking away the urge to work here. This year, like last year, the City Hall has urgently awarded the company BPX Sport the relief service on the beaches, but we have been left without work because the City Hall has not included subrogation in the award of work. This year, new people have also been incorporated as managers of rescue services, they are not managing things well, and last year’s problems remain unresolved.

M. Yanci: Some of the comrades were told the day before they were going to start working, and as people need, they've picked up the pool responders.

Why has the company BPX Sport left you in the street?

M. Yanci: This work conflict has been going on for many years. Following the 2018 strike, the awarded company, Red Cross, knew that the labour dispute was not fully resolved and did not wish to continue to provide its services under these conditions. Therefore, in 2019, with the urgent award, the City Council provided the emergency response service to the company BPX Sport. So we met with BPX Sport and we were told that they were going to receive all the workers, that they would respect the wages agreed, and also seniority. But this company was new to the management of the relief service on the beaches, it comes from sports clubs and pools, and the management was disastrous from the very beginning. The initial test went wrong, we lacked material, with the boat we also have problems, they are not registered, the drivers do not have the necessary titles… We complained about those things and they said we were against the company. This year, the company has decided not to employ the workers who last year caused problems to the workforce.

In June of this year, did you talk to the company early in the season?

M. Yanci: Yes, we had some meetings with the company and studied different options among the workers. Some of us said that if we didn't meet certain requirements we weren't willing to work, but then we thought it was better to improve working conditions internally. But by then we were told that all the seats were occupied. But it was a lie, there was still a shortage of workers, and there is still a shortage of workers.

J. Ibarguren: The head of the Zurriola, for example, was told on June 15, the day the season began, at 09:00 hours. Jobs have been dealt with at the last moment and in the same way.

M. Yanci: The interaction with the coordinator is also very bad. He's threatening and insulting his peers.

What protests are they making?

M. Yanci: We have a position on the beach of La Zurriola and every day we are here from 08:00 to 20:00. And at the beginning of the season we started doing concentrations every day before the City Hall from 20:15 to 21:00, and now the concentrations are held on Mondays and Thursdays. At the post of the Zurriola we have placed banners in which the main demands of recent years are gathered, and people are approaching to ask us and offer us their help. We've also created an Instagram account, @Donosti_rescuers.

What did you ask?

J. Ibarguren: Employ the people we have left without employment and guarantee subrogation, as there is a company in the future to avoid these problems.

M. Yanci: In the absence of this, it may happen that a company in Tarragona receives the award, that from there it brings 50 rescuers in precarious conditions, that it gets to work here without knowing the beaches here and that it leaves the rescuers who have worked here for years without work.

Why is subrogation so important?

J. Ibarguren: We want a discontinuous fixed contract. Otherwise, we are not sure whether we will have work every summer. For example, the Red Cross asked the City Hall to include the subrogation in the conditions of employment in order to be able to do that kind of contract.

M. Yanci: Paradoxically, prior to the 2018 strike, the subrogation appeared in the work of the City Hall of Donostia-San Sebastian even if it was not complied with, and in the other municipalities of Gipuzkoa no. But, after the strike, the City Hall of Donostia-San Sebastian is the only one that does not guarantee subrogation in the process. The rest of the municipalities have added the subrogation, and that of Donostia-San Sebastián has disconnected it from the award.

When did you start mobilizing for your working conditions?

M. Yanci: Three years ago, we started a negotiation process. We had been thinking for some time that we didn't have the right working conditions, and in 2017 we started making moves.

J. Ibarguren: We were within the Red Cross Convention, which had the City Hall's work assignment. But we thought we had to be in the agreement of the other workers in the sports facilities, for example, to equate working conditions with the emergency workers in the swimming pools. So we started talking to the Red Cross and the City Hall: number of hours worked, material used, breaks, etc. They were complicated negotiations, and in the end we decided to strike.

Next year, the strike took place in 2018.

J. Ibarguren: Yes, at the end of July. Along with the rescuers from other beaches in Gipuzkoa, we decided to make a three-day strike. They imposed minimum services of 80%, but it echoed in the media and both the company and the city council wanted to talk to us. However, we had to call for an indefinite strike, and the day the strike was going to start we reached an agreement. We didn't get the conditions of the pool rescue workers, but we did get some minimum points related to pay and subrogation, the most important ones for us.

Therefore, at the end of summer 2018 an agreement was signed between the workers, the union, the labour representation, the company and the City Hall. But at the beginning of the 2019 season we saw that the City Hall had withdrawn the subrogation of the award of works. We tried to meet them and talk, but we refused.

Following this year’s protests, have you received a response from the company or the City Hall?

M. Yanci: We have been approached by the opposition of the City Hall, from Elkarrekin Podemos and EH Bildu, and in June an attempt was made to address the issue in a municipal plenary. But the issues have to be scheduled three weeks earlier, and then it was planned to come in urgently, we went to the plenary that morning, but the PNV and the PSE-EE rejected the issue. The plenary session of the City Council, held on 23 July, has been duly proposed, and on that date it will be dealt with.

J. Ibarguren: Councillor Marisol Garmendia says that in the case of the previous year it was clear the conflict of subrogation and that she sees no problem here. We were surprised by his attitude in the municipal corporation, by not getting closer to us, by facilitating the dismissal of people…

In addition to your poor working conditions, you denounce the situation of the service.

J. Ibarguren: We want to make known the conditions under which they make us work. Last year we received threats to use the ship, when we could not use it, because we do not have enough titles. They told us that otherwise they would accuse us of not having helped us. We are prepared to get into the water and do what we can, but we cannot use water engines. We want to report on the state of the beaches.

Last year, for example, we had a pneumatic boat but it was drilled. The Civil Guard knew that and they had told us to be careful because the fine could fall into our hands and stop it any day. One day, the boat was sealed while it was standing. This year, the City Council decided not to use boats to avoid this problem. But for example, if something happens on the island, we don't have the ability to transport a person. They have these ideas, if something doesn't work well, which causes the service to get worse. We don't know why they take that path. They do not want to talk to us, they only talk to the company and they accuse us of taking a stand against the company and the City Hall. But we just want to give a quality service.

M. Yanci: San Sebastian City Hall sells the image of the beach, at the expense of tourism and surfing there are more and more people in the city and on the beaches. But the emergency response service does not improve, the number of emergency responders is maintained. Today there are as many rescuers as there were 25 years ago, but today the situation of the beaches and the number of people in them has nothing to do with what I was 25 years ago.

Next year the convention is over.

J. Ibarguren: And if we do not have subrogation, we have no guarantee of working conditions, we have to start the negotiations again from scratch. The service may be provided by another undertaking and may lay down other conditions. For this reason, it is essential for us to obtain subrogation in order to be able to maintain decent conditions in the future.

M. Yanci: Also to be able to improve other things.

J. Ibarguren: If we do not have subrogation we do not have a permanent discontinuous contract, so we have no force within the company: we have no delegate, neither in the Red Cross, nor in the BPX Sport. With temporary contracts we have put ourselves to defend the lack of material, the working conditions and that is why we have been dismissed. Everything brings us to the problem of subrogation.