The rift between the Salobreña Town Hall and its municipal police goes back many months, but it’s more pronounced than ever now. This accompanying photo was taken in 2010 in more ‘cordial times.’

The majority of the local-police department have put their names to a written complaint at the door of the Mayor’s office. In the ‘bitter’ document they demand their rights and complain that the Mayor Gonzalo Fernández has it in for them.

The municipal police are backed in their demands by the other political forces that populate the opposition benches.

Amongst their demands is one for a meeting with the Mayor and the Councillor for Citizen Safety, Rodríguez Callejón in which every member of the police force would be present so that no intermediary would be necessary.

The problem is the work roster, which the police union feels has been drawn up in an haphazard manner, which is further exasperated, they claim, by the political heads to concede days off and other absence permits. This has led to 22 of the 29 nine policemen to sign the official, written complain.

The demands, they point out, have no other object than to provide a “good police service without entailing disdain for the labour rights of the workers,” states the complaint.

They want to use what they term as the “American shift system,” because the present system means that, thanks to the extra hours worked during the summer and holiday periods, by the end of the year comes around, most of the staff have already worked their total yearly hours quota and hardly anybody is available for Christmas duty, resulting in only one person being on duty in the whole town. The Town Hall prefers to give days off rather than pay the extra hours when an individual’s annual work quota is complete.

(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)