Public outrage and lifeguard despair over 6 months of unpaid wages in Arona

[Myrtle Hogan-Lance]

Those would be the same cops that confiscate buskers' instruments.

In some cases it is to protect the general public's ears.

[Guanche]

And the same cops that probably will not be getting paid by the end of the year. If not already!

[Janet]

The following is a Press Release in the form of an open letter to the public and to Arona Ayuntamiento from Verónica Rodríguez Rodríguez, the Las Vistas lifeguard who is on hunger strike, She has issued it in response to the council's statement that I posted yesterday. (The press release was evidently in Spanish – this is my translation).

On 12 February, the newspaper El Dia published a statement from Arona Ayuntamiento as a response to the "conflict". We (or at least I) were surprised because for six months of what they call "conflict" they have not previously issued any information to the public about the situation and the minimum services that have been provided in Arona beaches since 9 November 2011.

In the face of such a statement full of nonsense and half truths, I would like to clarify that:

The contract awarded by Arona Ayuntamiento in 2009 to Sport & Salvament SLU expired in November 2011 because the Ayuntamiento "forgot" to extend it. Even so, the local authority continued paying invoices until August 2012, the point at which July-August's bill was withheld because of an embargo imposed by the social security and tax authorities. This means that the Ayuntamiento paid these authorities instead of the business. It seems that this situation surprised them, because they then decided to stop so as not to take on Sport & Salvament SLU's embargoes.

In July 2012, the employees stopped receiving their salaries.

In August 2012, the contract was put out to tender, a competition won by Eulen SL, which renounced the award a month later, in November, because of the "existence of lawsuits that it would have to assume", and because this would involve great cost. The contract was next awarded to Pro-Activa, which itself renounced the contract on 1 February 2013 for the same reasons.

Throughout all this time, the employees of the three Arona beaches, with blue flags – and Las Vistas also with AENOR flag for Universal Accessibility – have never stopped providing the service, always believing, until 15 days ago, in the  "Ayuntamiento's attempts to solve the problem" (as the council says).

In view of the strike call, the Council demanded "minimum services" given that this is an "essential public service". The Department of Employment confirmed this, and so we were "obliged" to provide the service every day without receiving anything in return. They have never bothered even to offer us food and water.

Over the last six months we have had no contact whatsoever with the company Sport & Salvament, and the Ayuntamiento, knowing that there was no contract with the company, that it had solvency problems, and that there have been notifications on several occasions from the lifeguard base that they were working in precarious conditions, have not bothered either to replace first aid materials, to clean public facilities, nor to check vehicles whose papers are now months out of date and which cannot make the appropriate patrols since there's no fuel, let alone transfers to the beaches of Los Cristianos and El Camisón, and cover for the half hour breaks of the lifeguards who are providing minimum services there.

I am "surprised" that for six months Arona Ayuntamiento has not "informed the public" and that they do so now as a result of reports in the press and discussion as a major topic in online social networks, British forums, etc., and that it has not been concerned with the sanitary conditions of a service to the public service that provides in its turn a socio-sanitary and public security service. And as "we now" reveal the truth, they put out a statement where they accuse us of little less than vandalism. This is untrue, and a serious accusation without proof which is punishable in law. Faced with the charge that "we have destroyed Public Facilities" we say this is not true, and that all we have are flags, sheets, and cardboard, and a campaign stands. I want to make clear that I (Veronica Rodriguez) have been camping at the lifeguard base since January 29, am on hunger strike, and that I woke up on Sunday to find slogans had been posted. The maintenance staff were deleting "only part" of them, and so I asked why they were not clearing them all. They replied that these were their orders. Then the police arrived to take pictures and that same night the council issued its statement. It seems particularly "strange" to me.

To Arona Ayuntamiento, I say:

Break the deadlock now of this situation that only you have caused, and which has already been delayed (now six and a half months). If the service had been rescued in September 2012, after the embargo on Sport & Salvament, the situation would not be so tense now. We have complied with your demands for  minimum services, even without the means to come to work: many without car insurance, without fuel, living on borrowed money, credit, not even having food to eat, and with "some colleagues" who are demonstrating peacefully for donations given by sympathetic beach users and tourists. This now violates our constitutional, employment and "human" rights.

I also say that the current situation (after three months of strike without a solution) has been reported to the Department of Employment for them to "reconsider the provision of minimum services". As we understand it, it is ridiculous and somewhat inhuman to demand employees go to work without being paid for six months" and in the deplorable sanitary conditions in which the service finds itself.

In response to your statement I also say that: of the "two people" they mention who are on hunger strike, Marco Luccini passed out on Thursday, his 5th day without eating; he was taken away by ambulance and admitted to hospital for several hours. Obviously at that point he had to abandon the hunger strike. This is further proof that the Ayuntamiento have not been to the lifeguard base not have any idea of how things really are. The employee who remains on hunger strike, now for 15 days, and who is sleeping at the lifeguard base, is me.

To "apologize to users and tourists" is well and good, but you have failed in refusing to accept responsibility for the situation of the 18 lifeguards who , without being paid for six months, continue to supply the service.

I hope that these clarifications will add to the statement issued by Arona Environment Department.

Yours faithfully
Verónica Rodríguez Rodríguez.
At Playa de Las Vistas, Arona, 12 February 2013

JA

[El Profesor]

That's incredible, you couldn't have imagined it.
So, corruption and ineptitude from the President of the country down to the local administration. The tragedy is that I doubt that will get in the papers, they wouldn't be allowed.
. Where did you find it? I couldn't see it anywhere.

Sweet translation, by the way 

[Janet]

Thanks Prof. Mostly my site is reported news ... occasionally it's journalism. This time it's journalism.

I got it first. It will be in the Spanish papers today IF they have the balls to publish it.

 

[El Profesor]

I can't see it on web pages.

Nothing to do with balls I'm afraid.

[El Profesor]

............  This time it's journalism.

I got it first. .......

 

If this is the case then maybe you should publish it in Spanish .... maybe no-one else will.
You might get a hit or two on the JA site with "Verónica Rodríguez Arona"

[Janet]

That's a good idea, Prof.

OK,  here's a link to the original. Off to put it on my website, tweet it, FB it ... 

[attachmini=1]

[Guanche]

Maybe I'll re-send my 'I've got a story' to the DM again and every other UK news paper that has the facility. Come to think about it. Wouldn't the UK or all tour operators to the South of Tenerife have a corporate responsibility to advise there customers about the lack of safety on the beaches?

[Michael]

Maybe I'll re-send my 'I've got a story' to the DM again and every other UK news paper that has the facility. Come to think about it. Wouldn't the UK or all tour operators to the South of Tenerife have a corporate responsibility to advise there customers about the lack of safety on the beaches?

Do us a favour and copy & paste it on here as well.