40 million opinions

From the point of view of Spanish Trade Unions

How is the power divided in a state? The most powerful group able to influence on everything concerning a state is the people. The public opinions and their respective decisions are crucial when it comes to managing a country or a government. The people and their opinions: our best ally and our biggest weapon.

Who?

There are 40 million Spaniards (over the age of 15) who have the potential to be politically active. All of them have an abstract point of view of their country and their respective values and ideals. From topics related to their private lives, to their work or the government itself; citizens develop their own voice from which they can start to bring changes to their countries. We as a Trade Union try to make sure that the worker’s rights and opinions are valued and heard.

Opinions about the aspects that affect the social, economic and political life:

• Social part. What we understand as social life includes the education, health, justice and safety of a country. There are different opinions, but mostly is part of the government to ensure these services.
• Economic part. The main aspects referring the economic part are mainly unemployment, or giving the status of «unemployed». As Trade Unions, we must help increase the number of employees hired in order to give more jobs to the unemployed part of the population. Unemployment has a negative outcome where the workers or the unemployed stop trusting the government that vowed to protect them and it has an effect on the global economy itself.
  Another main economic aspect is the low wages. In a growing economy, the current wages of the average worker is just enough to cover his necessities, but the public opinion is that wages should be higher. We can help this perception by negotiating for a higher wage with the employer.
• Political part. When it comes to the political part, the general discrediting of politicians due to the popular thought in which politicians are people who, through corruption, drive away the political parties from the needs of the people, create division between the government-people relationship. This information is transmitted broadly through the media (press, radio, television, internet). They emit opinions related to socio-economic and political issues, but according with the specific interests of each media.

Before the accumulation of information due to several self-interest of political and financial structures, the citizen, as object and subject of the consequences of government policies, must discern between information from reliable and non-reliable sources so that he, according to his principles or values, can adopt a more personal opinion through his own logic and rational thinking, not inductive or interested thought. In other words, you must apply the biblical principle of «separate the wheat from the chaff».

How can a citizen make a change?

Through a simple choice: to vote. The citizens have a civic duty to vote, but more than that they should vote to make the government listen to everyone’s problems and opinions. The democratic vote is participatory and secret. In these circumstances, the citizen should value their vote, taking into account the information received by the usual means of communication, but considering the interest of the emitting source of information and contrasting it with the fact that everyone has a civil life that affects other citizens.

To cast a democratic vote, a citizen must interpret the various programs of the various political parties and analyze their degree of compliance with previous programs. This way you can compare the proposed policies with the values ​​and principles of every citizen, trying to verify consistency between the proposals and promises made by the parties with personal, professional and institutional references of the politicians who proposed them.

Effects on the public opinion:

In the short term, public opinion can vary substantially with a positive or negative political fact. The expression and citizen will (expression of democracy) can make, change or modify in the short-term the government, ministerial or municipal decisions and policies when they are channeled acceptably well before the institutions.

In the long term, public opinion may give rise to changes in the stage of political parties, and those who do not respond primarily to the needs of the majority population may suffer a significant loss of their electoral strength. This results in an increase of power from the citizens to take decisions that affect their country and their respective individual lives.

What is our role as trade unions?

Trade unions, as an association for workers, are as far as may be possible, politically neutral in the sense of our association with political parties. We must be politically active, to provide an adequate protection of the life of the worker. That is, trade unions should not be linked to political parties, but we must link up to the social groups of workers.

In conclusion, there are 40 million Spaniards who develop an opinion about everything concerning their government, their labour and their private lives. Through all those opinions, a public voice is made which represents the people as a whole.

Privatization: a good thing?

From the point of view of the Spanish Government Opposition

Throughout history, different societies have passed by a roadmap that originates in the «civilized» societies, as a result of the evolution of humanity at different stages of savagery, barbarism and civilization. The resource management has been fundamental to every Empire through history to have access to a supply of raw materials needed for their development and mastering. The question is: how do we manage these resources to deliver essential services to everyone?

What are the models to manage resources?

1. The nationalized model is characteristic of nationalized societies, which are under government ownership, like for instance the USSR. These are societies where the government encourages the development of public companies to provide adequate services to society. There is a lot of bureaucracy regarding the state administration.
2. A private model is found in societies where a «free market» is what characterizes the economy. It is strictly based on the rules of demand and supply, taking the United States as a paradigm. In these societies, the goods and services are transferred from the public sector to private ownership.
3. The mixed model is characteristic of societies oriented under the system of «social wellness». In this model, the services are provided by a consortium of private companies, which are under public regulation (some sort of public and private partnership or consortium), and therefore have both nationalized and private ideals. This type of service provision is common in Europe, and especially in Spain.

Reasons why privatization has a negative outcome in our society:

• Essential services must be public. Some services need to be crucially supplied by the public sector. Services that cannot be ruled by a free market and therefore need to be provided by the government as public services include healthcare, education, law enforcement, infrastructure maintenance, …etc. In a truly democratic estate, the citizens should be able to pay through taxes the cost of those necessary services, to ensure that everyone has access to them.
• A bigger profit or a better quality? The primary objective of private companies is to maximize their profit. This is incompatible with services like healthcare or education because the private sector will only dedicate its money in making a bigger benefit and not into making the service of better quality.

• Negative effect on workers and employees. According to the PIQUE project, «Privatization has a largely negative effects on employment and working conditions and varied effects on productivity and service quality«. Some of the negative impacts on workers and employees as consequence of privatization are the following.
  • Fixed-term contracts instead of permanent contracts. Workers that are hired with a fix-term contract are likely to change jobs often. When the worker reaches the date established by the company, then it has to leave its working place. It’s beneficial to the private companies but not to the employee.
  • A reduction of the worker’s salary. People who are working under the government doing public chores are paid a higher salary than those who are employees at a private company. This is because companies want to maximize profit to give a higher salary to those in charge, leaving the lower level employees with a small salary. This uneven redistribution of money has a negative effect in the society.
  • Reduction of employee benefits such as licenses, illness or extra hours of work. This makes it harder for workers to enjoy their respective jobs. In the public sector, the government is in charge of making sure every citizen is under the adequate work conditions, while private companies are on their own.
• Unemployment. Another problem with privatization is that in many cases unemployment occurs in the labor force of the country. In Spain, 24% of the citizens are unemployed. This results in negative impacts on the individual, limiting their professional development and contributes to the emergence of psychosocial problems that affect their health (depression, etc.). Besides individual impacts, unemployment causes negative repercussions in society with problems affecting the family and the economy. Consumption is reduced and debts that damage mental health, individual and collective, are contracted.

In conclusion, privatization can have a negative outcome. The government must provide several services in order to have a true democratic society.

Public Administration: a road to development

(From the point of view of the Spanish Government)

The Public Administration, as a government-operating tool, should define priorities focused on encouraging the social and economic development. It depends on the state and therefore becomes responsibility of the government, which has political and executive power.

What should the Public Administration be like?

It should be centered on the human development, with the goal of encouraging the improvement or amelioration of the society and the economy. Human development understood as a process of enlarging the people’s choice in order to provide a decent standard of living, is achieved by increasing the people’s capacity and functioning, which will satisfy the collective’s needs. The human improvement is measured by the Human Development Index which is an indicator created to highlight the idea that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone. 

Transparency, austerity and responsibility are three characteristics that must define the Public Administration. It comes down to us, the government, to ensure appropriate services. We must work towards our goal of satisfying the necessities of the people in order to make this happen.

Things we must do as a government to provide public services of better quality:

Interpret the citizens’ problems analytically, without approaches from political parties or trade union interests. To do this we must translate the demands of the majority of the population into effective programs as a possible solution to predicaments. This will bring us closer to the people and their thoughts, which will make us move forward towards a more efficient society.

Bring the people together in unison by adequately addressing the problems of the minorities. This should be done equally with fair justice regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, etc.

Develop proficient government policies under the following principles:

• Complete transparency when it comes to the use of resources. Transparency is imperative when managing public affairs. The citizen must have access to all information provided by us, the government. It is crucial to guarantee appropriate services from the Public Administration. This ensures a competent use on our part and provides trust to the people.
• Penalty for the misuse of resources. With a constant regulation, we can ensure the appropriate use of our limited resources. Those who misuse them should be charged for embezzlement of public funds and corruption should also be penalized.
• Develop political strategies that strengthen the equity before the law, efficiency and quality of services, and power of the citizen. There will be equality before the law so that everyone can enjoy their rights and fulfill their responsibilities; Efficiency and quality to provide standing services that the people deserve; Power to make everyone have a voice in our country.
• An ongoing evaluation process must be developed to analyze the institutional performance. This guarantees that we are doing our work in the most efficient and effective way.

Apply several reforms to the work of civil servants:

• Change the selection system based on «oppositions for life» and replace it with a selection system based on experience, leadership and attitude through «management contracts» that stipulate responsibilities with incentives to citizens.
• Replace the «rigid schedule» system for a «flexi time» system that favors efficiency. The flexi time policy benefits both employers and employees and raises the staff morale and job satisfaction.
• Reduce the fixed allocation of staff. This is with the purpose to implement other forms of work such as «expert groups» on a given topic with fixation time and results.

To conclude, we as members of the government are responsible for strengthening the activities of the Public Administration, so that enhancements in the strategic planning and the public policies are implemented to provide the general well being of the country.