After fourteen days of strike action by employees of the municipal cleaning service Urbaser in Jerez, and with one and a half million kilos of garbage uncollected on the streets, representatives of the workers and the concessionaire will meet today to try and reach an agreement on how to implement a 20% reduction in costs.
According to the unions, Urbaser refuses to consider an alternative to the laying off of some 125 employees to achieve the necessary 20% reduction in operating costs.
The unions say that their members are willing to see a salary reduction of around €8,000 per year each and less holidays to ensure that no employees are made redundant. This, they say, will achieve savings of around €2.9 million.
In addition, they say that the company, Urbaser, should give up another €1.1 million.
The unions believe that much of the negativity being shown by Urbaser stems from the refusal of the Council, already over €1 billion in debt, to pay outstanding monies. It is alleged that the company has not received a single euro from the Council since January.