On May 27, at 11:50, the workers of the Parks and Gardens service of Murcia received a message through the WhatsApp group that they usually use to communicate between colleagues and those responsible for the service, although the request made to them did not have much to do with their usual tasks: “Everyone go to your homes and come back.” [sic] changed and with your cars to Víctor Villegas. You have to be in the auditorium until two.” The Víctor Villegas is the auditorium and congress center of the autonomous community and that day the congress was held there, organized by of prizes and the reading of conclusions.
For the PSOE spokesperson in Murcia, Ginés Ruiz, the situation is “very serious”, not so much because the workers had to abandon their work in the middle of the day to go to this event, but because the request reflects the way of acting of the municipal government, of the PP. “They have taken over the City Council as if it were something private, as if it were an extension of the party where everything is at the service of the personal and political interests of those who make up the Government team,” he stressed. The PSOE made this situation public after receiving anonymous complaints from workers. None of them wanted to expose this issue to this newspaper, since they feel very pressured within the service.
The Parks and Gardens contract has been provided since 2019 by the joint venture of the companies STV Gestión and Actúa, and is one of the most important of the Murcia City Council, both in terms of the volume of workers (about 230) and the financial amount (). The contract has expired since December 2023 and operates under a forced extension situation because it is an essential service, and for the moment the City Council has not put it out for public procurement again.
El PAÍS has had access to the messages that were sent to the working group by one of its leaders who, in response to the disgruntled responses of some workers due to the urgency of the indication and having to go to a congress during the working day, explains: “I didn’t know anything either. Whoever can.” In the messages, this person indicates that the workers must go to the congress “changed”, without their work uniform, and in their own vehicles and not those of the service.
One of the workers insists on asking if they have to go “in street clothes,” and the person in charge confirms it. He also suggests that, if they live far away, they go home to eat and return for the afternoon session of the congress, from 3:30 to 7:00 p.m., while those who are already in the conference room, wait there until 2:15 p.m. because “Pepe is giving out some prizes.” Below, attach a screenshot of the day’s program in which it is announced that at that time Councilor José Guillén will present the Smart City Awards.
In a contact with the media this Thursday, the councilor of the area, José Guillén, has denied that he conveyed any order for the service employees to attend the congress that already had, he assured, full capacity for “several days before.” As he has defended, it was the concessionaire company itself that contacted its team to ask if the workers could attend after verifying that there were “some free spaces.” “We thought it was phenomenal that the Parks and Gardens workers could attend these sessions because they were closely related to their work, and it is something that the company will have to explain if it decides to invite its workers to freely and voluntarily decide whether to go to a session or not,” he assured. He has flatly denied that the City Council gave an order to take workers to the auditorium to “make a big deal.”
The management of the UTE that manages the service, STV Gestión y Actúa, sent a statement late this Thursday afternoon indicating that the service workers attended the congress “voluntarily” which they call “training days”, and that the company provided them with the “appropriate means” to do so. This contradicts the information sent to the workers in the messages to which this newspaper has had access, in which they were asked to go in their own vehicles. The UTE note adds that “the workers who considered that this training session was not of interest to them continued to carry out their tasks (…) as is usually done with any other type of training.”
For the PSOE, Councilor Guillén should also leave his position or be dismissed by the mayor, Rebeca Pérez, since the events reported now add to a long list of reprehensible behaviors.
