CCOO Balearic Islands has demanded this Tuesday“labor improvements and salaries at the level of the expenses of first necessity“, as well as a distribution of the wealth derived from the arrival of more tourists to the Islands.
After knowing the EPA data made public today, the union has remarked that business profits are increasing while wages are not enough to meet the needs of the working class, so it has stressed the need to “be ambitious with reforms and urgent labor improvements”. CCOO values the data on the increase of the employed population since it means that new jobs have been created, but warns that it also shows the seasonal nature of the Balearic economic model, focused on the high tourist season. As they point out, 2024 has been a year of“decrease in unemployment, creation of workplaces and discontent” since, they add, the increase in tourists and business gains has not meant greater progress for the working class. “We are not satisfied and we demand improvements in living conditions with strong wage increases that help working people to cope with the high prices of basic necessities. The figure of the poor worker has to disappear from the Balearic reality”, they have alleged. On the other hand, they demand that companies give the value it deserves to the training and qualification of the workforce, with appropriate recognition and incentives to respond to the improvement of the product offered and, therefore, greater added value and higher performance. This, they say, will have to have repercussions in labor matters, such as lower workloads or shorter working hours. CCOO also points out that seasonality is one of the biggest problems of the Balearic labor market and that the tourist season has been extended “in a totally insufficient and unbalanced way”. However, people’s needs do not depend on the tourist season so they defend a “modern economic model with wealth transfer to workers, allowing everyone to have a decent and healthy life all year round”.
