Doctors’ strikes loom as health law reaches Congress

Doctors’ unions are threatening further strikes as Spain sends a new health staffing law to Congress on Tuesday, 1 September. The Council of Ministers in Madrid approved the bill at its second reading, despite opposition from the doctors’ unions’ strike committee. The legislation now enters parliamentary scrutiny.

The proposed framework would replace rules in force since 2003 covering staff in Spain’s National Health System. Health Minister Mónica García has said the current employment conditions leave professionals dissatisfied, a view shared by workers.

Doctors’ unions demand a separate law

The bill grew out of a preliminary proposal agreed in June by the Health Ministry and the unions SATSE-FSES, Workers’ Commissions, the General Workers’ Union and the Independent Trade Union and Civil Servants’ Central.

Doctors’ and specialist unions on the strike committee reject the plan. They want a law written specifically for their professions that recognises their particular conditions. After staging one week of strikes each month from February to June without progress, they have said stoppages will resume from September and could become an indefinite strike.

Regions also challenge the plan

Spain’s autonomous communities have also opposed the draft. Several regional health chiefs want it withdrawn and rewritten through a state-wide agreement.

García has ruled that out, saying the regions must now put the improvements into practice and, where needed, strike fresh deals with unions in their own territories. The government must secure support in Congress and then the Cortes Generales before the law can be finally approved and published in the Official State Gazette.

Topics: Strikes · Jobs & labour · Health · Politics

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com