The noise of the chainsaws and the firefighters neighbors and passers-by surprised in the heart of Zaragoza this Saturday evening. Dozens of forest firefighters played the main role, summoned by the union sections of the CGT in public companies SERGEbelonging to the Government of Aragon, and SWALLOW in the state, they left at 10:30 p.m. from the Glorieta Sasera, in their so-called ‘Marche Noire’ which is repeated every year to protest against job insecurity that has dragged the sector down for a long time. They walked along Paseo de la Independencia, passing through Plaza de Aragón, Plaza de España and Calle Alfonso until they reached the headquarters of the government delegation in Plaza del Pilar around midnight.
at the cry of Forest firefighters, fundamental! and accompanied by posters of Moros or Bubierca, among other towns affected by the forest fires in recent monthsdenounced the “lack of empathy and the inaction of the political class, the administration and the companies on which they depend, after a devastating summer“.
Professional category
During a pre-party weekend in Pilar, with an almost summery temperature and the center full of Zaragoza, the sound of firecrackers and the engine of the machines raised some of the terraces to make a corridor for the firefighters while they were visiting Independencia. As they advanced, dressed in their yellow uniforms, they pounded the ground violently with their fire sticks. How to extinguish the flames?
“Unfortunately, year after year, we make this call. It is sad that more than 15 years have passed and we continue to do this black march, claiming the samethe professional category of forest firefighter, the reduction coefficients, a series of better ones that we ask for and that the politicians do not give us, ”said David Blanco, spokesperson for the CGT union of firefighters dependent on the government of ‘Aragon, during the March.
“We every year we put our lives on the line in the mountains of the state and this effort and that the work is not rewarded by any political party”, added Jorge Farled, from the BRIF, the Spanish Forest Fire Reinforcement Brigades of the state-owned state company Tragsa, which depends on the Ministry of Ecological Transition and of the demographic challenge.
Its claim is repeated year after year, but this 2022 comes preceded by the consequences of the big fires started in July and August which left mountains scorched, crops lost, cities evicted and even badly affected. “We have spent years denouncing the precariousness of firefighting operations in both human and material resources, the lack of investment in preventive work and in more trained and professionalized means of extinction, responsible forest management of our mountains and year after year, promise after promise, they go on doing nothing,” they said in the appeal.
The noisy demonstration was interrupted by a minute of silence for the colleagues who died this year upon reaching the Plaza de España, during which protesters remained crouched. Two spokespersons for groups of people affected in the areas devastated by the fire this summer in Aragon took the floor to demand more means and adequate forest management by the Government of Aragon.
“In the end, we are all affected by the fires”explained Marta Estopinán, who lives in Torrijo de la Cañada and who was one of the spokespersons who asked to take care of the rural environment and the working conditions of firefighters. “The problem we have is a lack of forest managementor because before there was an agrarian culture and a way of life that really managed the mountain,” he added. The demand was that the government of Aragon act. “The mountain is not clean,” he lamented.
The firefighters also took the floor to thank the help of farmers and residents of the affected areas in extinguishing the fires.
The group denounces that the lack of political will makes it difficult to advance rights in this group which “the skin was left on the floorbut only receives promises that are not kept once winter arrives”.
During the visit to Coso and Calle Alfonso, passers-by stopped as the large demonstration passed and some began to applaud. “There have been many fires and in Aragon they have been very serious, they have to hire them all year round, so in the winter they can do maintenance work and in the summer it doesn’t happen“, asked Marta Gómez, sitting next to her friend Mónica Casamayor in a central café on Calle Alfonso. The noise of the demonstration traveled the entire central street until it ended in Plaza del Pilar. The demonstrators did not stop hitting with their tools to work until the end.
Upon their arrival at the government delegation, the union sections of the CGT, SARGA and TRAGSA denounced that Occupational diseases derived from the toxicity and dangerousness of their work remain unknown.a second activity when the physicist is not there to be on the front line to fight the fire, as well as the reduction coefficients which regulate their retirement age.
They asked for adequate training according to their functions and decent work centers, because often they do not even have a place to change clothes.
In the case of the device managed by Sarga (according to the DGA) they reproach that They also do not recognize their professional category of forest firefighters. The demonstration ended with the roar of a loud firecracker as midnight approached.
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