The Granada-city municipal police and fire service picketed the city hall to complain over increases in their working week, imposed by a central-government decree.

Residents of Granada were witness to the unusual sight of policemen being watched over by policemen (the Policía Nacional were called into to control the Policía Local demonstrators, whose day-to-day duties include security for the very same building in the Plaza del Carmen.

The governmental decree stipulates that firemen and policemen will have to work an extra 120 hours a year, which works out to 2.5 hours a week, or, if you prefer, half an hour a day on a 5-day week. In other words, the same demand that has been placed on town-hall functionaries.

The problem wasn’t so much whether they should work another 120 hours a year, but how they would be distributed over that period. Earlier in the week there had been a meeting between the relevant workers unions and the City Hall, but it concluded with the former walking out angrily. According to the unions, the Councillor for Personnel, Juan Antonio Fuentes, had wanted to have complete liberty on how these hours were worked, so that, for example, they could be accumulated to be worked as 30, 4-hour shifts at night, weekends or on public holidays. One thing is having to work another half an hour a day and quite another is having to do extra 4-hour shifts in anti-social periods.

According to the councillor, the meeting was called short because of the din outside, whereas the protesting firemen and policemen said that they were making the ‘din’ because the councillor wouldn’t allow independent union bodies to participate.

One wonders whether the said councillor and his political colleagues would be happy putting in 30 x 4-hour shifts during their normal time off?

(News: Metropolitan Granada, Granada, Andalucia)