Migrants with rights. It's that simple

Until June 30th the extraordinary regularization process approved by this Government will last, and in the time elapsed we can already say from CCOO that the response in our offices is being as expected: Doubts, need for help, and gratitude.

More than 200 union members nationwide and remotely assist people who are going to apply to regularize their situation in Spain, in support of a necessary procedure that confirms that there were a good number of migrants, men, women, children, families, in conditions of unprotectedness and exposed to exploitation and precariousness of living without papers in the country. With reason, parties like Vox and their spokespeople resort to the lie of delinquency and crime: They need it so that their own continue to practice delinquency and abuse with the poor and the precarious.

It has been said many times, regularization processes like this one have brought many good things to Spanish society and economy. It will be like this now too. Of course, for the one who wants to have a woman six and a half days at his service in exchange for 30 euros daily, without paying contributions, without paying unemployment, and without needing to observe the minimum norm of dignity, that this woman becomes regularized is a nuisance. We understand.

The right should put on glasses to look beyond their travel companions, and adopt a responsible and rigorous discourse to stop making a fool of themselves and start acting responsibly. This is indeed a priority for organizations that take our role seriously in a society that will continue to be multicultural, open, and respectful. Common sense must return, so hidden – or absent – in the offices of some political parties.

If in those offices there is still someone curious enough to step outside and glimpse reality, we invite them to come to the CCOO headquarters where these weeks migrants are being helped with the necessary paperwork. They will learn common stories that a country in the rich part of the world cannot afford to ignore. They will learn about experiences and survival, they will put a face to the families who have done and are doing much more for this country than that whole bunch of spokespeople for hate and violence. We live in a time that must be better if the consensus for coexistence does not continue to crack with fear-mongering speeches. Short-term political maneuvering might gain votes, but it doesn't change people's lives. It might even ruin them, and the votes that came once will stop coming the next time.

The xenophobic variable clarified, after avoiding the us vs. them confrontation, let no one forget a reality that CCOO has been denouncing for decades: Public services need resources, investment, and personnel. The right, which now criticizes regularization under the banner of public services, continues to plunder the public sector wherever it governs, in communities, in provincial councils, in city councils.

Hands are missing in the public sector and hands will be missing if the policy of those who run the administrations is to spend less on the public sector or privatize. We lived it in the pandemic, we experienced it in the DANA of Valencia, we certified it in the fires in Castilla y León. Strengthening, maintaining, and guaranteeing public services is fundamental because it is what sustains the well-being that a State must ensure. There are no shortcuts, sufficient budgets and staff with the necessary stability are needed. The opposite is discomfort, what this miserable and racist right-wing seeks, which has said it loud and clear, wants to destroy the social democracy that was built in European countries like ours.