More than 200 firefighters from the Galician regional parks, on strike since last June 15 to demand better working conditions, have mobilized this day in front of the Provincial Council of Ourense, starring in moments of tension with the ‘riot police’ of the National Police, since the first ones used flamethrowers against the line of agents.
The Unified Police Union (SUP) has shown its support for the colleagues of the Police Intervention Unit (UIP) who formed the police cordon to protect the Ourense Provincial Council. At the protest, firefighters also used smoke canisters, flares and firecrackers.
“Firefighters from the Provincial Council of Ourense tried to enter, and when they were prevented from doing so, they even attacked our colleagues with flames. It seems unbelievable that people who know how painful a burn is to do these actions,” the SUP has denounced on its social network account X, according to collected Europa Press.
The protests started on Friday in front of the provincial institution of Pontevedra, and this day it was the turn of the province of Ourense, where the firefighters gathered in front of the Provincial Pazo shouting “resignation”, “poor firefighters, never again” or ” corruption”, throwing paint at the façade of the building and also burning tires in front of it, in the center of Rúa Progreso.
Likewise, the street was filled with smoke not only with the burning of tires, but with the use of smoke canisters, flares and firecrackers. The more than 200 firefighters gathered at the door of the institutional headquarters where dozens of riot police were present and where there were moments of tension.
One of the firefighters was injured in the nose when he was hit in the struggle. According to fire department sources, he suffered a broken nasal septum, for which he was taken by ambulance to the Ourense University Hospital Complex.
For its part, the police union SUP Galicia has denounced on social networks the “radical” protest in which, it claims, the protesters attacked “with great violence and including flamethrowers” the agents who were protecting the official premises. In addition, he has announced his intention to appear as a private prosecutor to claim for the injuries caused to two agents.
The protest started from Alameda in front of the main Post Office building, a few meters from the Provincial Council, keeping the street closed for just over two hours.
On the route, the firefighters carried protest banners that read “a nosa loita, a vosa vergoña” – “our fight, your shame” -.
Upon arriving at the building of the Ourense provincial entity, they demanded to be received by its president, Luis Menor, who was General Director of Emergencies during his time at the Xunta de Galicia and agreed to the meeting.
Afterwards, the president of the strike committee, Ángel Moldes, of the CIG, stated that the provincial president had promised to “mediate” to sit down to negotiate “as soon as possible”, but “at the moment there is no action.”
“We hope to be summoned this week because these mobilizations are bringing injuries, we have a firefighter with a very serious blow to the face,” he warned.
In this sense, he assured that he was “skeptical” about “the commitment of any politician” as long as they are not summoned to the joint negotiation table – which includes the four provincial councils and the Xunta de Galicia – and “they put black documents on white.” “Until then we don’t know what we have,” he said.
For his part, the president of the Ourense Provincial Council, Luis Menor, clarified that what he has promised is that he will transfer the requests to the negotiation table, requests that, he recalled, “are public and known” and pointed out that the negotiation “is quite distant.”
“I have to make it clear that this is a service of the autonomous community and everyone has to know that it is going to be an autonomous solution,” Menor clarified, guaranteeing that it will be “single and joint”, “without political colors” and “without differences” between the consortia, but recognizing that, in any case, “the positions are very far apart” and that “right now I don’t see an immediate solution.”
Along these lines, he has insisted that “you cannot enter into auctions”, “the solution has to be at the Galicia level because the service must be provided with the same quality at the level of the entire autonomous community, so the solution will be Galician”.
However, he highlighted that Ourense “is the province that is in the best conditions” in this negotiation because it is the province in which firefighters “have the highest salaries in all of Galicia” and where “the greatest part of the demands”, therefore the provincial president has opined that “the distance is less”.
Thus, the provincial president of Ourense has condemned the way in which the regional firefighters assert themselves. “You cannot lose reason in force with this type of actions,” he criticized, disfiguring the attacks on public furniture and the institution.
“They don’t seem right to me, I think we can understand each other in other ways and I told him so,” he explained, explaining that, “despite the disagreement with the forms,” ??he prioritizes listening to people. “and more so to people with whom I worked for many years and whom I deeply respect and know that they respect me,” she added.
Regarding the paint stains visible on the façade of the provincial institution, he said that they will be fixed “through legal channels”, explaining that “it will be with their own means, collecting the insurance or claiming it from them.”
Firefighters demand a collective agreement at the regional level, unified for all provinces according to their profession; greater provision of technical means and greater provision of human resources, as well as fixed employment in accordance with the doctrine of the Supreme Court of January 2022.
Despite having been received by Luis Menor, the mobilization calendar has not been affected. “The measures that we agreed on in the assembly are the ones that we are going to maintain. This is an assembly, we are not going to change the roadmap,” said the president of the strike committee, Ángel Moldes, before his colleagues at the doors of the Ourense Provincial Council. .
In this way, it will continue on October 27 in front of the Provincial Council of A Coruña and on the 31st of this same month before the Provincial Council of Lugo.
In addition, a demonstration is planned on November 17 in Santiago de Compostela and, for the moment, the holding of another assembly on November 20 in order to assess the status of the negotiations and “the possible adoption of new measures”, among the which cite closures, camping in public places and even a hunger strike by the almost 500 firefighters in the regional parks of Galicia.