Palma.Palma's Mayor Mateu Isern and members of his ruling Partido Popular team on the City Council met at the end of last week with union representatives at City Hall and said that the critical financial situation will mean there will have to be job cuts .
Although Isern didn't say specifically which members of staff were going to have to go as part of a staged plan to cut the City's budget, he said that such austerity measures would need to last two years.
The union representatives said that they were aware that the City Council had serious financial problems and said they were grateful to the Mayor for meeting with them prior to final decisions on job cuts being made. The representatives made it clear however, that they would defend the rights of workers belonging to their unions who were currently employed by Palma Council. The unions also said that they would be watching the Council like hawks to make sure that the money they had saved on salaries is not being spent on anything that isn't a top priority.
A different tack
Although decisions are still to be made, it would appear that Mateu Isern is not going to follow in the wake of the Balearic government which has been busy axing complementary institutes and organisations on the grounds that they reportedly double up on the work already carried out by regional ministries.
Next week, the Council is going to produce a draft proposal of the cuts it intends to make. Mayor Isern has in fact already started making savings such as the reduction in overtime and other controversial measures such as the closure of the Playa de Palma fire station.
In yesterday's meeting, unions expressed fears that the Council would stop the tradition of double pay at Christmas but whilst Isern (far right) said there was no intention at this time to do so, he could offer no guarantee that workers were going to get their full December salaries on time.
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