The Government of Catalonia has already started paying resources so that the staff of cleaning who worked in the hospitals during the emergency covid copper the pay extra that I had pending This is confirmed to EL PERIÓDICO by sources consulted by Department of Health of the Generalitat. A total of 7,146 people -the vast majority of them women- will receive an average and single payment of 336.7 euros recognize their commitment and extraordinary contribution during the pandemic, an amount up to four times less than required by doctors and nurses and which comes a year later.
The procedure for the disbursement of this extra compensation consists in the payment by the Generalitat of an extraordinary fund to the companies that provide the hospital cleaning service, so that they can then pay the bonus to the employees who were on the staff and provided service during the month of March 1 and 31 May 2020 in a Catalan hospital. As explained by Salut, the Treasury has already started the procedures to pay this compensation to 4,934 professionals and “Coming soon” will do the same with the rest of the beneficiaries. The public commitment of the Generalitat is that everyone has received payment before December 31st.
“Before the doctors arrived, we cleaned everything. We doubled shifts… it was difficult,” María José, a specialist cleaning worker at the Vall d’Hebron hospital, explained to EL PERIÓDICO. Cleaning staff has been classified as essential for the functioning of hospitals and primary care centers during the covid emergency. The Generalitat and the rest of the public administrations have increased the allocation of resources so that the bidding companies could increase their staff and enhance their services.
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However, and despite their essential condition, the government of the Generalitat – then presided over by Quim Torra– He didn’t include cleaners in his first “covid payments” package. In June 2020, the Catalan executive announced a package of 140 million euros to reward toilets that have supplied their bodies during the pandemic and thus move from applause on balconies to material rewards. That award has not been replicated in the case of cleaning staff and Junts and ERC have come to block legislative initiatives in the Parliament of Catalonia that invoked it.
We will have to wait until June 2022, i.e. two years after announcing the additional salary for healthcare personnel, which the Consell Executiu – this time with Peter Aragonese as ‘president’ and with Junts still in cabinet – approved the payment of ‘covid wages’ to cleaning staff. The maximum amount of this payment is 450 euros, it may be less depending on the hours the worker has worked. And the Catalan administration has allocated to pay for it 2.4 million euros.
