Occupational Monitors in Alicante Demand Extended Working Hours: "Fighting Exclusion from Precarity is Impossible"

The municipal group Esquerra Unida Podem, supported by Compromís, has submitted an Institutional Declaration to Alicante City Council to request the extension of working hours for occupational monitoring staff. The proposal, which will be debated in the upcoming Plenary, aims to convert current part-time contracts into full-time positions, with the goal of strengthening municipal social services and improving the working conditions of the group.

Around thirty occupational monitors from the City Council could benefit from this measure, backed by technical reports from the Social Welfare area issued in 2023 and 2024. The initiative was presented last Tuesday at a meeting with the group, which also included union representatives from SEP and CCOO, as well as municipal spokespersons Manolo Copé (EU Podem) and Rafa Mas (Compromís).

"We are talking about professionals with over twenty years of experience, working with at-risk children, the elderly, those with functional diversity, or in exclusion situations. They cannot continue with part-time contracts while services are outsourced," Copé stated after the meeting.

Meanwhile, Mas emphasized the need to consolidate the staff supporting "the social services closest to the citizens." "If we truly want to strengthen community intervention, the first step is to ensure decent conditions for those who carry it out," he stressed.

The Declaration requests that urgent steps be taken to extend the 32 monitoring positions to full-time, with the corresponding budget allocation, and to establish a negotiation calendar with the unions.