The President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, defended this Tuesday her new Young Volunteer Corps in the face of criticism from sector associations, including the Spanish Volunteer Platform, who insist on its illegality for violating regional and regional regulations. The sector, which was not consulted for the project, is supported by the left-wing opposition, the Youth Council of the Community of Madrid and lawyers who warn that administrations are prohibited from resorting to free labor to fulfill their obligations. How to pay for jobs through volunteers. The volunteers, aged between 14 and 30, would be recruited by the technicians who manage the regional youth card and sent to homes and dormitories of the elderly or disabled, as well as to soup kitchens.
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Ayuso gave his answer to the critics this Tuesday in a tweet in which he responded to the article in this newspaper a day earlier: “This is not correct,” he said on the social network X (formerly Twitter). “It is not illegal because regional law does not limit volunteering to entities in this sector. And it in no way replaces the work they do, but complements it. Promoting volunteerism is a right and a duty of the CM government.” At the moment, few other details are known about the Young Volunteer Corps, which the Minister of Social Policy, Ana Dávila, presented on Friday during a meeting with journalists at her department’s headquarters has. A spokesman for Dávila emphasized that the young people would limit themselves to accompanying people.
That is not right. This is not illegal as regional law does not limit volunteering to entities in this sector.
And it in no way replaces the work they do, but complements it.
Encouraging volunteerism is a right and a duty of the CM government.…
— Isabel Díaz Ayuso (@IdiazAyuso) October 3, 2023
Volunteering in Madrid is regulated by two regulations, a regional one from February 2015 and a federal one from October of the same year. State law is clear on the ban on the creation of voluntary bodies within the administration, a red line that guided the paperwork, the lawyer who coordinated this task, Pablo Benlloch, told EL PAÍS. This law was promoted by the 1996 government of former President Mariano Rajoy, which sought to update the existing norm.
Benlloch says administrations have a duty to manage public services that they cannot delegate to third parties. “Another thing is that you can reach an agreement with social units through concerts or agreements, but you cannot behave like these units at all,” he adds.
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Benlloch explains that the Madrid law is more unclear because, although it gives the public sector this possibility, it sets in Article 13.2 a limit that Benlloch believes that the Community of Madrid will exceed with its project: not accepting public volunteers Functions or duties of administration. For example, he sees the boundaries between the work of occupational therapists or psychologists in a residential home and what young volunteers will do as problematic. For this reason, he considers the Madrid project to be illegal and points out that there is already a recent precedent: “This already happened during the pandemic, when the Community of Madrid tried to admit social work students to work in the residence halls recruit.”
When the Madrid Assembly, dominated by the PP, approved the autonomous norm in February 2015, the people’s representatives spoke out in favor of preventing volunteer work from entering public administration. The limitation of Article 13.2 was proposed by the then deputy of the Unión Progreso y Democracia Alberto Reyero and the then deputy of the popular group in the Assembly Ana Camins considered it necessary. “We understand that this contributes to the differentiation of public service volunteerism and protects the nature of the administration’s operations,” Camins said.
Another lawyer who agrees with this opinion is Eduardo Rojo, professor of labor law at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. “Administrations must provide their services with their own staff. “You should maximize volunteer work, but that doesn’t mean social services are carried out by volunteers,” he adds.
“From what I know about the world of politics, I have the feeling that this false project is the initiative of a consultant who came to a new department with good will, although another, less goodistic interpretation is that you want to save economic costs. adds Rojo. .
Outrage in the industry
The project has outraged the association sector, which is not convinced by Ayuso’s explanation. This Tuesday, the Youth Council of the Community of Madrid, a platform that brings together 40 organizations, joined the criticism. “We express our concern about the use of volunteers by institutions,” he published in X. “They should never replace jobs and their work should complement each other.”
Another platform concerned about the project is Fevocam, the association of voluntary organizations in Madrid, which has requested an urgent meeting with the consultant for this Tuesday. “We are the ones who do the best volunteer work and it is not the job of the administrations to manage volunteer projects,” says its president Alfonso Fajardo.
More Madrid and PSOE will ask Councilor Dávila for explanations on Monday when she has to appear before the Assembly’s Youth Commission. The two groups criticize the form and content of the project. They protest because the sector was not taken into account, they question the legality of the measure and they distrust the goals of the Ayuso government.
Alodia Pérez, a representative of Más Madrid, criticizes the president for “lack of strict interpretation of volunteer laws.”
“They should stop looking for magic solutions at zero cost, at the expense of professionals, not only social services but also volunteer management. We hope that the government corrects its plan and that it listens to the institutions that are working hard to improve the care situation for the most vulnerable in the region,” he adds.
The Social Affairs Spokesperson of the PSOE in Parliament, Lorena Morales, believes that the PP is taking another step in its charitable model of social services. “We demand a model that offers rights and real social justice so that equality prevails. And that happens through investment and public action. Not by leaving everything uncontrolled to the private sector and resorting to volunteer work to save skilled workers.”
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