The Professional Association Justice Civil Guard (Jucil) has claimed this Monday, December 15, in Palma, the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Civil Service and the unions negotiating the complement of insularity to adjust it to the real cost of living in the Balearic Islands, in order to avoid the departure of agents already trained and stabilize templates in the archipelago.
The organization has warned that the lack of a “decent salary”, according to the insular shortage, is causing an “alarming fluctuation of staff” which, it argues, “undermines the stability and quality of service” of security in the islands, a pressure that in the Pitiusas is exacerbated each high season.
Critical” turnover and academy effect
Jucil describes as “critical” the data on the number of personnel arrivals and departures in the last five years: “1,000 personnel have arrived”, but “as many have left” and only 250 would have stayed, a figure that the association considers misleading because some of these agents may request a posting and leave, “as happens repeatedly year after year”.
The entity adds that about half of those who have passed through the Balearic Islands in that period have been student guards in practices, with which, according to the complaint, the negative balance of movements of personnel with consolidated employment is covered every year, a mechanism that ends up turning the destination into “an extension of the academy”.
Along these lines, the provincial secretary of Jucil in the Balearic Islands, Tomás Quesada, sums up the problem with a phrase he has already repeated to this newspaper in previous interviews: “Talent is being trained without creating the right conditions to retain it”.
Ibiza and Formentera, summer pressure and persistent vacancies
In Ibiza, the lack of personnel results in a constant trickle of vacancies and work overload, especially in Public Safety, with peaks in summer due to the increase in tourist population and associated incidents (thefts, robberies, disturbances in leisure areas or gender violence).
In a previous interview with La Voz de Ibiza, Quesada already described an internal climate marked by fatigue and lack of rest: “The most widespread complaint, obviously, is fatigue, lack of rest”, because the service does not end when returning to base and, if there are detainees, proceedings and procedures are extended.
“We see that the so-called ‘burned-out worker syndrome’ is growing,” added the Jucil leader, alluding to a psychological wear and tear linked to having to “discriminate” incidents when patrols are lacking and urgency accumulates.
Symbolic” bonus, impossible housing and comparative grievances
The core of the claim is again the same: a residence supplement that, for Jucil, does not compensate the real cost of living in the Balearic Islands, with housing as the main factor of expulsion. In that report, Quesada recalled that the last update for the agents in the islands dates from 2007 and that in Ibiza, Formentera or Menorca an additional 92 euros are received (74 in Mallorca), an amount that he defined as “something symbolic”.
The comparison with other territories also appears in the ticker: Jucil argues that the supplement in the Balearic Islands should be oriented to “the needs and circumstances of the territory” and not to a mechanical equalization with the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, because, he argues, the cost of living in those destinations is “significantly lower”.
In parallel, the association stresses that the Balearic Islands “has always had its own compensation table”, with “different” criteria and in its opinion “insufficient” given the uniqueness of the shortage.
Negotiation in the Civil Service and “lack of clarity”.
Another front is the method and content of the negotiation. Jucil denounces “lack of clarity” in the application of the salary improvements linked to the Civil Service agreement: he argues that initially tables were presented for the insularity of the Balearic Islands with fixed amounts and triennia, but that in subsequent letters these figures changed as the fixed amounts and triennia were eliminated, leaving the final system pending further negotiation.
For the professional union, the risk is that the final result will again fall short of the real rental and services market, especially in Ibiza and Formentera. In the field of public employees, the debate on the bonus has escalated in recent weeks with proposals for increases and multi-year schedules.
“Do not repeat 2006”: Jucil’s warning
Jucil also pulls memory: “It can not be allowed to repeat what happened in 2006, when the Balearic Islands was discriminated against by imposing some approaches that did not meet the real needs of the agents,” says the association, which calls on unions and Ministry “height of vision” to set amounts “appropriate” and strictly linked to the cost of living in the archipelago.
The background, Quesada insists, is to prevent Ibiza and the Balearic Islands as a whole from becoming a training circuit for other communities, with agents serving the “essential time”, completing their curricula and leaving, leaving the main posts with strained staffs just when police presence is most in demand.
