Basic social service professionals have again offered an unusual unity photo this week at the CAV. On Tuesday all the education unions unanimously supported the call for a strike in the education sector, and on Friday the public health unions supported the call. The unions SATSE, ELA, LAB, SME, CCOO, UGT and ESK have begun a cycle of mobilizations with concentrations before the primary care centers of the CAV this Friday, the only union that has been left out of the calls, but that has no representation at the health sector table.

Exhausted and without resources

The unions have explained that the objectives of the mobilisations are "two" today. On the one hand, to make society aware of the "extreme situation" in which they find themselves. On the other hand, urge the Department of Health to seek solutions to "serious problems": "Lack of personnel, high rates of temporality in Osakidetza, physical and emotional exhaustion, systematic work overload, stress, lack of recognition, lack of protection, lack of responsibility in occupational health, lack of conciliation measures and permanent deterioration of working conditions". The motto chosen for the calls of these weeks is clarifying in this regard: "So far we have arrived!" Exhausted and without human resources. For quality public health and for the rights of workers."

Trade unions have denounced that all these problems have been aggravated by the COVID-19 crisis for years and are a direct consequence of certain policies. For years, according to trade unions, health adjustment policies have been developed and the Department of Health has not opened negotiations or dialogue with workers. "We wish to denounce the impact that the worsening working conditions has had on the quality of health, which has been manifested after the declaration of health emergency, and which has occurred in recent years," they stressed.

Table of claims

The unions have addressed the new Health Advisor, Gotzone Sagardui, a vindictive table with a number of petitions: A budget that is equal to the European Union average for public health, "devoting 25% to primary care"; increasing the number of workers and the consolidation of contingent personnel, "to prevent the leakage of professionals trained by Osakidetza with public money"; reviewing cuts and neutralising privatizations; or the appropriate working conditions of professionals and measures to ensure health.

"To the extent that no solutions are proposed to deal with these problems, we will continue to mobilise," the unions warned. For the time being, two calls have been made for the coming weeks, according to the same source. Next Friday, 25 October, they will concentrate in front of the hospitals of the Basque capital and on Saturday, 3 October, they will hold a joint demonstration in Bilbao.