continued from previous post…
The 2008 budget wasn’t actually presented until 2010, and of its almost two million euros, around 70 percent went on wages for the town hall’s 36 employees, along with four other civil servants, who are still on the payroll. The widespread belief in Cenicientos is that the mayor, like so many others throughout Spain, has been practicing pork-barrel politics. There are 1,600 eligible voters in the village. Most of them always vote for the same party. The group known as the undecided in the rest of Spain might well be called municipal employees in Cenicientos, says Luis Ramos of the local Socialist Party branch. He explains how the system of patronage works: “Around 40 grateful employees mean the votes of some 40 families. Elections here are won on less than 100 votes…”
Cenicientos’ municipal employees say that the last time their employer fell behind on paying their wages - for five months - they received their full backdated salaries one week before the municipal elections. One employee summed up the tactics of the mayor: “Each month we would have to traipse up to the town hall, ask for a meeting with the mayor, and say to him, ‘Enrique, pay us, please, pay us’.”
One reason Cenicientos might be so indebted could be due to the high cost of staging the village’s annual fiestas each August. The village lies in what has become known locally as the valley of terror. The name doesn’t come from a reputation for kidnapping or murder, but from fiestas that attract some of the best fighting bulls. But a terrific bullfight doesn’t come cheap. Last year’s four days of taurine entertainment cost 80,000 euros, along with the expenses of other festivities and the organization. What’s more, in a village of a little more than 2,000 people, there is a state-of-the-art bullring that seats 2,500.
The village’s bullring may be impressive, but many in Cenicientos say that they would rather have seen their money spent on maintaining social workers or carers for the elderly in the area - now they have to travel to the town of San Mart?n de Valdeiglesias, 30 kilometers away.
More jobs are to be lost in Cenicientos. Teachers at the infant school are to be laid off, as are cleaners. The mayor has just announced that the community is to shed 12 municipal jobs, among them those of Jos? Ram?n the garbage collector, Mar?a Dolores the cleaner, ?ngel the messenger, and Marifeli the village registrar, all of whom were told in January that due to the village’s accumulated debts, their services would no longer be required.
Most accept that the village can probably no longer afford to pay them, but they also wonder why they have been laid off, given that their wage bills are among the lowest, some of them amounting to little more than 400 euros a month. They also fear that they will not be paid any compensation. “There may be too many of us, but if they are going to give us the sack, then they should do so properly,” says Rosa Montero, the infant school’s concierge, who is one of those likely to lose their jobs. “It doesn’t look like we’re going to get any compensation,” she adds.
For the moment they can only wait and see. They have not yet been told when their contracts will be rescinded. Mar?a Dolores says that the strain is becoming hard to bear. “It’s been nine months now since we have been paid, and now we are being told that we are getting the sack.”
To make matters worse, it looks as though the mayor hasn’t been paying his employees’ social security contributions. The UGT labor union says that it has evidence that some 700,000 euros are owed by Cenicientos town hall in social security payments for its employees, which means that once the 12 are laid off, they won’t be able to claim unemployment benefit.
Marifeli Puentes has been the village registrar for 26 years, and currently earns 600 euros a month. She feels a strong bond with the community, and is not only sad to be losing her job, but also wonders what the future holds for Cenicientos. At her small office in the town hall, there is a cabinet containing a ledger. It lists all of the deaths in Cenicientos for the last 150 years.
“Those people are our ancestors,” she says. “After I’m gone, who will take care of all this?”
My comment…What a bloody awful sad reflection of the times. What the hell is the Mayor playing at? How come he is still in power after all this time?
