Parliament rejects bid to shut down controversial complaints channel
The Canary Islands Parliament has rejected a motion from the PSOE socialist party against an anonymous complaints mailbox set up by the Tenerife Business Confederation (CEOE Tenerife) to report alleged fraudulent sick leave and workplace absenteeism. In a heated debate on Wednesday, the Socialists faced accusations from government groups and Vox of trying to criminalise business owners, who defended the initiative as legal.
Socialists decry lack of legal basis and data protection
The motion, supported by PSOE and Nueva Canarias, called for the withdrawal of this mailbox and for the Canary Islands Government to initiate disciplinary proceedings. They argued the scheme lacks a legal basis and violates workers’ fundamental rights. PSOE deputy Gustavo Santana accused the employers’ association of stigmatising and criminalising both workers on sick leave and the medical professionals who sign them off. He argued it conflates absenteeism as a right with alleged fraudulent absenteeism, which he stated accounts for less than 1% of cases.
“With anonymous complaints, you don’t know who is making the allegation—it could even be the employer themselves—and the accused worker is left unprotected. Furthermore, it violates data protection,” Santana asserted.
Opposition parties defend mailbox as a tool for productivity
Nueva Canarias deputy Natalia Santana accused the regional government of submitting to business leaders who “criminalise workers who fall ill,” creating a mailbox “for workers to denounce each other, collecting data without guarantee or consent to target them without safeguards, without control, and without legal basis,” thereby violating their rights.
In contrast, CC deputy Francisco Linares described the mailbox as “a channel for citizen participation that seeks to end fraudulent absenteeism,” against which he claimed there are “no technical, legal, or administrative arguments.” PP representative Carlos Esther accused the PSOE of “criminalising business owners,” stating the mailbox “does no harm whatsoever and only pursues fraudulent labour absenteeism, which is a scourge on productivity.”
Vox’s Paula Jover also accused the Socialists of attacking entrepreneurs and defended the mailbox as “an ethical channel for internal reporting covered by European directives.” Jesús Ramos Chinea of ASG asked for no one to be demonised and for the matter to be left to social dialogue, while Raúl Acosta of AHI maintained there was no legal basis for the Parliament to act as a watchdog in this case.
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