Foreign workers protest in front of the Ministry of Finance to demand salary and working conditions improvements

Eduardo González Workers from the Foreign Service Labor Personnel (PLEX) demonstrated this Wednesday in front of the Ministry of Finance to protest the chronic precariousness suffered by this group and demand improved wages and working conditions. The protesters, organized by the unions CCOO-Exterior, CSIF-Servicio Exterior AGE, and UGT-Exterior, and by the collective's Single Works Council (CUPLEX), claim that the group has already endured a salary freeze for fifteen years. They also denounce the systematic failure to comply with an agreement signed in 1990 that requires the Administration to annually review PLEX salaries, taking into account the socioeconomic conditions of each country. This agreement was ratified by a final ruling in 2020 by the Madrid Social Court, and "the Civil Service and the Treasury persist in ignoring it and refuse to implement it," according to CCOO. Although the PLEX collective received the salary increases included in the Framework Agreement for a 21st-Century Administration between 2022 and 2024, the unions consider these improvements insufficient, given the global inflationary context and the accumulated loss of purchasing power. Furthermore, those called to the protest denounce that the impossibility of accessing internal promotion has plunged “5,500 workers into a situation of precariousness that is unsustainable,” according to CSIF. “While the volume of work skyrockets, the Administration systematically blocks any attempt at negotiation and progress and makes inequality the norm. Patience has run out: the time has come to take to the streets,” the union added. The organizing organizations denounce that, despite working in the service of the General State Administration and Spanish citizens residing abroad, among many other functions, “PLEX continues to be ‘the great forgotten one’ in public policy, and its conditions reflect neither the commitment nor the responsibility of its tasks,” warns CCOO. “It's not just about PLEX's working conditions: it's about ensuring that Spain has strong, dignified, and effective public action abroad, capable of serving more than three million Spanish men and women (soon to be four million as a result of the Democratic Memory Law) and, at the same time, sustaining the multiple functions of our foreign policy,” CSI asserts. One of the group's greatest difficulties is its geographical dispersion, as PLEX works in more than 150 countries and cannot always travel to Madrid to confront the administration. “That is our weakness, but also the reason why we need more support,” CSI warns. With this mobilization, the three organizing unions are seeking to reestablish dialogue and negotiation through the various ministries with staff in their centers abroad, as well as the Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service, "also demanding concrete commitments to guarantee decent working conditions for a group present in dozens of countries and key to the State's foreign action," concludes CCOO.

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