The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration and current government spokesperson, Elma Saiz, has demanded "respect and knowledge" from the Popular Party in everything related to the protection of occupational health in Spain.
"It is an irresponsibility that we see in leaders in this race to score points to see who is more ultra, as they put migrants or workers or women at the center and in the spotlight," the minister said in an interview on TVE's 'Malas Lenguas' program, collected by Europa Press.
As Saiz warned, in recent weeks it has been confirmed that "Vox dictates, Ayuso preaches and Feijóo executes" in these matters. "It makes me think that it's not that they don't want migrants or that they don't want workers, it's that they want them without rights," she warned.
Given this "irresponsibility," the head of Inclusion defended that these issues should be treated with "rigor and seriousness" within the framework of social dialogue, "something that Feijóo also wants to undermine."
"I would ask for respect and a little knowledge of something as important as the protection of the health of workers in this country," the minister remarked.
MUTUALS, PUBLIC LAW ENTITIES
Regarding the demands of employers for mutuals to assume more powers in the management of sick leave, Saiz specified that these entities are public law in nature.
In fact, the minister recalled that, as a result of collective bargaining, it was agreed that in cases of sick leave due to trauma, mutuals could play a more relevant role in diagnosis and recovery, "always respecting the will of the workers and always knowing that sick leave and discharges are issued by public health doctors."
However, she indicated that it is the autonomous communities that must formalize the agreements to apply the agreement reached at the social dialogue table and regretted that the regions governed by the Popular Party "are looking the other way."
For this reason, she asked Alberto Núñez Feijóo to "give a telling-off" to his regional presidents so that they "work to contribute to improving the efficiency of public health management instead of privatizing."