Despite promises made at the weekend by mayor Pepe Vegara about the security of their jobs, the hundred employees of Clequali, the company that manages Orihuela’s sports facilities, have only received half of their monthly salary.
The payments were made on Monday afternoon, 10 June, with human resources informing them by telephone that the balance would be paid within 10 to 15 days.
This has been confirmed by the CCOO (union) delegate on the company committee, Miguel Ángel Plaza, who has shown his complete dissatisfaction with the management in this matter as he conveyed the distress of the staff who are most concerned about what may happen next. Faced with this situation, he said that the workers do not rule out demonstrations.
The Leader first reported Clequali’s critical financial situation a week ago, stating that the staff were most concerned because there had been no official communications from either the company or the Orihuela Council. Furthermore, the continuity of the service has been put at risk since there has been no contract for it for more than a year.
Following the publication of our story the mayor of Orihuela, Pepe Vegara, announced that after several meetings with Clequali, the service and salaries of the workers were guaranteed, however the reality is that they have not been met in full and the employees are now even more concerned about their jobs.
Orihuela has a number of sports facilities spread throughout the municipality. Aside from the districts, in the town centre, the main ones are housed in the Palmeral and Las Espeñetas sports centres, as well as around the Palacio del Agua, next to the Ociopía shopping centre. On the coast they have the Playa Flamenca Municipal Sports Centre, as well as some sports courts spread throughout urbanisations.
Such problems could not come at a worse time for the municipality with school holidays set to get underway in two week’s time with the resultant increase on sports centre usage that they will inevitably bring.
