Animal Politico toured the 12 Metro lines to learn about the conditions in which those who clean the facilities work and documented various violations of the Federal Labor Law and the human rights of the workers.
“They want to kill me,” says Rafael. “They are watching me.” He is 65 years old and works as cleaning staff at the Morelos Metro station, on Line B. He has a mental disorder, that’s why those thoughts distress him. Despite that, he has no social security and does not receive adequate medical care.
It is outsourced under the model known as outsourcing, by the Multigreen Consortium, one of the two that provides the cleaning service in the Metro Collective Transportation Service (STC). The other is Tecnolimpiec Ecotec SA de CV
It’s Saturday. 15 minutes to 3 in the afternoon. Rafael waits at the entrance of the Morelos station. His right arm trembles. He has a hard time holding the half-filled soda bottle that accompanies it. In a few more minutes your turn will begin and you will have to clean the stairs and the platforms, until 9:30 or 10 at night.
He says he doesn’t get tired, that nothing hurts, that he is used to hard work. But he must regularly go to a psychiatric hospital because he had a bad head, when he was 18 years old.
“I go to Fray Bernardino, in Tlalpan, but they tell me that they will no longer attend me. I do not know why. I will see if I speak with the director. I don’t have social security. They say here (in their work) that they will give it to me, but not yet. ”
He also tells that he lives with his sister, who has no more money than the 1,540 biweekly pesos that he is paid to clean.
Poor conditions
Rafael is the most extreme case among 12 stories that Animal Politico was able to know in a tour of the 12 lines of the Collective Transportation System (STC) of Mexico City to interview older adults who clean and who, with more than 65 years, they work for this public body, although outsourced by a company, without social security despite having varied sufferings, with low wages and eight-hour hours for six days a week.
According to what the Federal Labor Law says, with respect to the outsourcing regime, in articles 15 to 15D, the contracting company must make sure at the time of concluding the contract that the contractor has sufficient documentation and proper elements, to comply with the obligations that derive from relations with its workers and with the applicable provisions on safety, health and the environment at work.
The law is very clear, says lawyer Raúl Padilla, although workers are outsourced or outsourced, as they are known, they must have social security.
“There is no gap in the law that exempts contractors from that, nor any possible excuse. Every worker must have it and the companies or institutions that hire outsourced services must ensure that it is so.
“Older adults are the ones that most require that safety: they are sick and if they are going to work, especially in something like cleaning in the Metro, they are very exposed to having an accident, their body no longer responds the same and they are on the stairs, They walk on the platforms, it is a risk for them. If one day something happens to them, who is going to take responsibility? Calvary is going to be for families, ” warns the lawyer.
According to the contracts entered into by the STC and the companies that provide the cleaning service, all subcontracted workers, such as Rafael, must be insured by law.
Companies are obliged to deliver the updated list of employees monthly, with date and registration number in the IMSS. It is also stipulated that the bailers must carry their credentials with name, photograph and social security number in a visible place. But that does not happen.
In the Political Animal tour it was found that, in addition to not having social security, workers do not carry the corresponding badge in a visible place, although respondents said they do, but they must leave it with the stationmaster when they arrive and Pick it up when you leave. Only two brought him in the shirt of his uniform, and in this they had not registered their respective social security numbers.
In the contracts between the companies and the Metro it is indicated that in case of non-compliance the public body can terminate them. But the STC has not done so, although an audit in 2018, of its same internal control body for cleaning services, found that the workers were not affiliated with either the IMSS or any health institution by the companies of clean.
The audit analyzed the cleaning contracts formalized during the year 2018 between the STC and the three companies that then provided the service, and that involved a maximum authorized amount of 325 million pesos, awarded directly.
In reference to the services performed at stations, it was detected during the audit that there was a lack of personnel, materials and cleaning tools in general. Irregularities were also found, such as excess charges, due to a poor service provided with a smaller number of personnel than those stipulated in the contracts.
Not only that. It was detected that there is no lack of control in the registration and issuance of credentials to cleaning workers. In the case of the company Ecotec, he pointed out that the STC coordination had no control when issuing and authorizing the identifications. “By authorizing the credential, IMSS membership record numbers are not controlled or reviewed,” the final report notes.
Of the 195 workers assigned in the morning and evening shifts, the identification credentials of 169 of them were physically verified, and it was found that 5 were pensioners of other companies and therefore have IMSS, 60 had no registration number on their credentials and 104 did have a social security record.
However, according to the report of the audit of the internal control body in the SCT, “when reconciling the names and affiliation numbers of the 169, IMSS quota determination cards for February and March were not found. 2018 presented by the company Ecotec, which confirms that none is affiliated with social insurance or another health institution by the company ”.
Source: animal politico
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