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The problem of closed rooms in museums under the Ministry of Culture has not been solved for at least three years. The direct cause is the lack of personnel, a consequence of the delay in the call for public employment that depends on the Ministry of Finance and Development. Although the imbroglio goes further.

The downgrading to which the last collective agreement of 2019 subjected the room guards prevents them from collaborating in key positions, such as lockers or opening doors. This new situation hinders the daily functioning of museum institutions. And it makes that professional profile unattractive, expelling workers to other ministries with better working conditions.

For all these reasons, CCOO has initiated a "collective conflict" with the Ministry of Public Function, which depends on the Treasury. If before June 17 that body does not sit down to negotiate and reverses "the professional classification of the room guards so that it passes to a higher group, we will open the judicial route," says Vidal Cruzado, a member of the union in the Ministry of Culture.

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Art.

Picasso tiptoes past the Reina Sofia Museum

  • Writing: MARIO CANAL Madrid

Picasso tiptoes past the Reina Sofia Museum

Culture.

Miquel Iceta announces an unemployment benefit tailored to the intermittent of culture

  • Writing: EFE Madrid

Miquel Iceta announces an unemployment benefit tailored to the intermittent of culture

The room guards work surrounded by beauty, wisdom and history. The protection of the most delicate and revealing heritage of our society rests under his gaze. Day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, they live locked in a gilded cage. "It's a monotonous and very tiring job," explains a guard quietly, surrounded by art treasures. "And on top of that, now they have taken away our ability to advance professionally."

The guards consulted, who swirl like a Greek chorus of laments in a room of the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, got a place after passing an exam that "was super difficult," says one of them. The professional category in which they entered was Group 4, "which allowed us access to the scale and to promote, but now it turns out that we have been downgraded: what was Group 4 is now an E1, before we were an E2. To give you an idea, it corresponds to the category of concierge."

Almost a third of the rooms of the Archaeological are closed to the public for lack of guards. But it is a problem that has been affecting the 16 national museums. Half of them are in different parts of Spain, such as Valladolid -Sculpture and Casa Cervantes-, Toledo -Sephardic Museum and El Greco Museum, "with punctual closures in the afternoon shift" the latter-, Mérida -Roman Art-, Cartagena -Underwater Archaeology-, Santillana del Mar -Altamira-, in addition to the Valencian Ceramics and Sumptuary Arts.

In Madrid, we find the Anthropology, the Sorolla, the Museum of America, Decorative Arts, Museum of Costume or the Museum of Romanticism, which has 11 of its 26 closed rooms. In the Cerralbo Museum there are five inaccessible although, according to Vidal Cruzado, "two Sundays ago it could not even open, like the Underwater Archaeology of Cartagena on May 3, for lack of a box office". None of the museums consulted report these closures on their websites or at the box office, unless you ask.

The solution does not seem to be immediate. From the press department of the Ministry of Culture respond, via email and unsigned, that they plan to hire 58 people in the next call for all state museums. While these arrive – "It is a long process that can take a year yet," says Cruzado – they will be incorporated interim, but this will happen only when the Public Function communicates the general call. Something that, after successive delays, was scheduled for last month.

With regard to the upward reclassification of its professional category, Culture washes its hands and adds that it is not its competence to "possible annulment or revision of the professional classification", sending the ball to the Ministry of Public Function.

There are exceptions, or privileges, depending on how you look at it. Both the Prado Museum, which has an independent agreement, and the Reina Sofía make their calls for employment apart from the rest. They do not depend on the Undersecretariat General of Museums, such as those mentioned above. Thus, the Prado examined the candidates to fill 28 positions of guard on March 18. And the museum that keeps Picasso's Guernica has taken no less than 139 places, which will be occupied by those who approve the opposition, which should be held shortly.

However, the Undersecretariat of Museums also incorporated surveillance personnel a year ago. Showing that the closure of rooms was a solvable issue. "I now have a six-month contract. I got it because in the summer the media started to tighten the screws and bring up the subject of museums, "says a 46-year-old guard. "If you don't hire more people, it's a matter of money."

The temporality "is something that does not give the necessary stability to the template", according to CCOO. For the union, what the Ministry of Culture and Sports should do is provide its workers with equal conditions: two days per week of rest, something enjoyed by the guards of the Reina Sofia. And "exercise the necessary dialogue at the highest level with the Ministry of Public Function" to reverse the professional classification of its workers.

  • art
  • Reina Sofia Museum
  • Prado Museum
  • Miquel Iceta

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