• The Company and Ministry continue in their attempts to reach an agreement.

Ferrovial Servicios SA, the company that provides cleaning services at the Vega Baja Hospital, is still hopeful of reaching an agreement with the workers commission as they attempt to avoid a strike of all hospital cleaners rescheduled for this coming Monday.

The strike was originally planned to take place on 10 January but it was postponed when the Ministry of Health admitted that it had made a miscalculation with the dimensions of the hospital, reducing the area to be cleaned by 2,800 square metres and therefore the number of cleaners required to carry out the tasks.

Hospital sources have said that “the management is mediating between the company and the Ministry to improve the conditions of the specifications.”

Read: Cleaners to strike at Orihuela Hospital

Cleaners to Strike at Orihuela Hospital

If an agreement between all parties is not agreed by Friday, the unions have said that they will call an indefinite strike in the cleaning service on Monday.

The workers commission warned a few days ago of the actions in terms of hiring and adjusting the workforce that the service contractor, Ferrovial Servicios SA, intends to carry out.

It will mean a further reduction in staff, which has already been reduced from 85 people in 2012 to 64 today.

The works council has calculated that there will likely be a further reduction of 12 employees from the current, a number that is already insufficient. They further denounced that the company is not covering sickness of holidays with the “purpose of increasing profits.”

They regret that “this can only be done at the cost of leaving areas uncleaned, which in a public hospital, currently in the throes of a covid outbreak, is not a very wise step to make.