20 Candelaria Cleaners Strike Over Seven-Year Pay Freeze

Twenty women who clean public buildings in Candelaria are going on strike because their wages haven't increased since 2019. The strike is planned for January 29, 30, and 31, and then again on February 2, 3, and 4.

The cleaning service has been run by the company Urbaser since 2001. The workers say the rules governing their jobs are "outdated and expired years ago." They add that no real progress has been made to update this contract or their working conditions.

Candelaria City Council says that wage increases "need to be negotiated between the company and the workers." They also mentioned that they are working on a new contract for the service, similar to ones recently introduced for other town services.

Because of this, the local political party Coalición Canaria (CC) met with representatives from the strike committee. They wanted to understand the workers' situation directly and show their support for the strike. CC highlights that the workers have been forced to strike after seven years without a pay rise and without proper changes to their contract to ensure fair working conditions.

Ángela Cruz, a spokesperson for CC, said that the strike committee told them about earlier meetings with the City Council and the company. In those meetings, promises were made to look into improvements, but these haven't happened. "The workers live with constant uncertainty," she added.

CC criticized the situation, stating it's "unacceptable for an essential service to have frozen salaries while the cost of living has gone up and the workload has increased!" The staff, most of whom are women, also want more workers to be hired to fix the current shortage and reduce their heavy workload.