SEPE offices prepare to reopen by appointment, partitions and security reinforcement

The Ministry of Labor will reopen in the second week of June the offices of the State Public Employment Service (SEPE), closed to the public since last March. The reopening will take place in the midst of the de-escalation of health and labor alert measures and with thousands of benefits still to be paid .

Work wants to resolve a reopening plan as soon as possible, which requires coordination with the regional administrations and preventive elements of occupational hazards such as security partitions and security personnel. The body that pays for unemployment benefits has already acquired 1,000 methacrylate partitions and hopes to reopen with a protocol discussed with the regional administrations last week. The vast majority declared their willingness to do so under these conditions, although, for example, Andalusia has already reported difficulties in finding partitions.

In the return to direct attention to the public, the CSIF union has already warned that the safety of the agency's workers must take priority. The more than 6,000 officials have seen how their effort to update the benefits promised by the Government has been questioned by the number of people who have not received any type of subscription or have received it in error.

The beneficiaries' complaints have risen in pitch as time passed without charging and the consultation phones collapsed while the Ministry of Labor announced that all the payments were made in a timely manner, except for errors by those who processed the applications. Last Tuesday, the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, assured the Senate that 98% of the benefits are paid , calling the information that warns of a much higher volume of defaults "press cuts".

98% of subscriptions as quoted by the minister would leave 68,000 people out of collections. However, the figure seems to be much higher. Today SEPE has delayed its plans to open the network until it has ascertained the real situation. Likewise, Labor has hired Tragsa, a company under the Treasury umbrella, to process files.

Last Sunday, the agency's workers indicated in a letter to the director, Gerardo Gutiérrez Ardoy, that the internal data of the system reveal a much higher volume of affected. As of May 24, the collapse of the system reaches 470,000 beneficiaries according to this letter.

"We must observe the coefficient of errors that have been detected in the management of the procedures for suspension and / or reduction of working hours, which yields a figure of 11.6%, contrasted in the applications (HOPE) , which indicates that Regarding the number of workers affected by these ERTE (3,334,202, a figure that you have provided yourself) we are pending the processing of benefits to about 386,767 unemployed as of the date of this writing, and only with regard to such management, "he explains in the letter Manuel Galdeano, national coordinator of CSIF at SEPE.

"If we refer to even more precise data to which we have access, the number of workers immersed in said procedures rose to 4,055,068 as of April 28, which, applying the referred coefficient, shows us the resulting 470,387 outstanding individual benefits. "he concludes. Galdeano warns that "there is considerable satiety over the delays that occur in the payment of benefits" and advises that it continue to be processed electronically until it catches up.

For this union, the volume is high enough to require precautionary measures. The Balearic Islands, Madrid, Castilla La Mancha, the Basque Country and La Rioja have already committed to strengthening the offices with security personnel. In general, the way to avoid long queues or crowds at the doors of the offices will be to attend to the public only by appointment , so that the presence of people without a certificate is not justified. In territories such as Catalonia, the closure of waiting rooms is also proposed, while in Navarra access to the office would be carried out with video controls , as in bank branches. Madrid will notify the Government Delegation of the reopening date to have the reinforcement of the Police .

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