According to the union, the Department is finalizing the tender documents to outsource the comprehensive management of five centers in the province of València and two in Castellón. This measure would entail the definitive displacement of public staff and the end of the mixed system that has operated in these facilities until now.
UGT criticizes the lack of transparency in the process, noting that the Department has individually contacted public employees to obtain their consent for changes in their assignments, thereby avoiding dialogue with workers' representatives and customary negotiation tables. This situation became apparent after the union detected moves to reassign more than seventy job positions across various categories, such as social education, management, kitchen staff, and maintenance.
The union fears that the logic of business profit and cost-cutting will lead to more precarious workforces and higher staff turnover, which would disrupt the educational and therapeutic continuity needed by minors.
In a meeting held on April 1, the Administration finally confirmed the advanced stage of the privatization process. The affected centers in València include the reception centers of Campanar, Xiquets, and Xics, the Colonia Sant Vicent Ferrer, the minors' center of Cabanyal, and the Mislata II Youth Residence. In fact, at the Xiquets center, the public staff has already been fully relocated. Union estimates suggest that around eighty professionals will be transferred to leave these spaces under exclusively private control.
Paco Chapa, head of public social services for the Autonomous Sector of UGT Serveis Públics PV, has expressed concern about the consequences of this change for children under guardianship. UGT warns that the loss of direct public control could weaken oversight mechanisms and create a network of centers with unequal quality standards, diverting public resources to the private sector in an area of particular social vulnerability.
