The street sweepers of Madrid face the heat with a new protocol: "We did not forget what happened"

José Antonio González died last summer after a heat stroke. At the age of 60, he collapsed in the street working at more than 40 degrees. The case of this street sweeper in Madrid led to a whole cascade of criticism of the conditions of the companies, in situations of extreme heat, they exposed their workers. Days later, another employee was admitted to the hospital in serious condition, and the most demanding jobs in the afternoon shift were abolished.. Now that the high temperatures return to the capital – it is the forecast of the AEMET since Thursday – the companies and unions linked to this work launch a protocol to avoid repeating mistakes. It was approved on June 9, and has been in force since then. As a limit, it will last until September 15.

“I think what happened changed our minds a lot,” admits Ester, one of the street sweepers affected by this protocol.. The disaster in the last hot season showed that something was not working: “We had gotten used to working hours that are increasingly impossible today”. He admits that it is his case, and he believes that also that of other colleagues. Doing otherwise was not regulated either. Although since then, there has been progress.

The heat and conciliation

Already in July 2022, a prior agreement was reached so that the Madrid street sweepers would not work in the afternoons when it was more than 39 degrees, the maximum level of danger. In the yellow alerts, clearing was suppressed at these same hours, and the uniforms were renewed for fresher ones. The current plan included some of these measures, improvised in view of what happened. He also tried to improve the main problem detected then. “It was almost impossible to reconcile,” summarizes this worker. Both the union representatives and the contractors agreed on this same point in the meetings to reorganize the service..

Last summer they redirected the staff on the fly based on what the state meteorology agency announced hours before. The margin of time to organize was always very short.. Now, from 34 degrees, all services are suspended between two and four in the afternoon. Those of sweeping and maintenance, more intense, until five. During that time, it will be possible to work from vehicles with air conditioning, but for the rest these three defined scenarios have been established. “Last year we had a somewhat ambiguous protocol,” says one of the advisers of Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) in negotiations with businessmen, Pedro Javier Morán.

That a worker died and the increasingly intense heat seriously affected the operators led them to react “quickly and running”. With everything more consolidated and a written agreement, from the union they say they are satisfied with the current roadmap. On the other hand, the private companies that the City Council hires to clean the streets admit that there was no greater forecast for these hours of extreme heat.. But they believe that with the changes they will be able to face the summer with “more security”. This is the balance made by the spokesperson for ASELIP, the association that brings them together, Mariano Sancho, who also pays attention to the forecasts for maximum temperatures.

The exception: big events

In the event of a red alert, the protocol does not specify lines of action. The only guideline is that, in addition to all of the above, “more restrictive preventive measures” may be applied.. A very wide range that at least will suspend almost all the service in the afternoons, clarifies ASELIP, with the sole exception of large scheduled events. After the death of the worker last summer, a plenary session of Cibeles approved extending the measures adopted by the cleaning service to other employees who carry out work in full sun.

In it were read some words that the son of José Antonio González, the worker, wrote when his father died. “You will go down in history for having improved the conditions of your colleagues,” he predicted then. so it has been. And this summer it will be verified if, at least for the moment, it has been enough. It was also accepted to evaluate whether the contractor complied with occupational risk prevention. “All companies have their rules, and those rules are met,” they settle from the Consistory, which clarifies that they only “urged” the companies to review and take the pertinent measures, without specifying whether the City Council did any follow-up. Similarly, they recall that this is an outsourced service and argued that, in these cases, “it is up” to the contractors to review their plans.

Yet the climate emergency is more palpable by the day. So, at the gates of July, the intention this time is to be more forewarned. Just a month ago, the central government also endorsed, in an extraordinary Council of Ministers, modifying the labor prevention regulations and including new measures –among them, the prohibition of working outdoors during hotter hours– that are mandatory for the companies. “We are going to adapt the weather conditions to the jobs,” promised the head of Labor and current leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, when the Executive's intention advanced days before from Alcorcón.

A year ago, Díaz experienced a crossroads of reproaches with the mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida, precisely as a result of heat strokes between workers from the Madrid cleaning service. But, beyond the debate generated inside and outside the capital by the situation of the street sweepers, 2022 in Spain broke other standards. It was the warmest year since there are records not only in the country, but in all of Europe. In summer came the straw that broke the camel's back, with water restrictions in many areas of Galicia, Extremadura, Castilla y León, Andalusia and Catalonia and more than 300,000 hectares devastated by fire.

Nobody wants a similar scenario to be repeated.. In April, the Community of Madrid approved a comprehensive plan for when the days of suffocation arrived. Refrigeration measures were proposed in educational centers and certain time changes, along with other protocols for hospitals or public transport. Whether due to increasingly intense droughts, large fires or heat waves, the focus of the administrations also turns towards this problem.