Seven years without a rise
According to the workers' representatives, as reported by Canarias7 on 8 September, the pay of the south-east's refuse crews has not moved in more than seven years. The sacrifice was voluntary in 2020: they accepted the freeze so that the switch to a new concession holder would run smoothly. They put the loss of purchasing power at more than 21 per cent and point out that the figure appears in a legal report by the company. Canarias7 names neither the report nor its date — the number is one side's position. No trade union is named in the coverage; the voice throughout is the works committee.
A contract that does not know about inflation
The real bind lies in the procurement. The Mancomunidad del Sureste, the joint authority of the three municipalities, awarded the service in December 2022 for ten years; eldiario.es reported a total of 98.7 million euros. Those sums were fixed before the great wave of price rises, and operations began in July 2023. Anyone who wants to pay higher wages today must take them out of a margin calculated in 2022 — or the authority must improve the contract. That question is where the conflict is stuck.
The Mancomunidad's arithmetic
Óscar Hernández, mayor of Agüimes and president of the Mancomunidad, drew his line on 10 September in Canarias7: "Las aspiraciones que tienen ellos en cuanto al porcentaje no lo vamos a permitir bajo ningún concepto" — "The aspirations they have as regards the percentage, we are not going to allow under any circumstances." His yardstick: a contractor's staff must not be paid better than municipal employees in equivalent posts. At the same time he says the point is that they should have "a decent wage". Contracts, he notes, are awarded "with set amounts", the staffing chapter is contained in the concession terms, and the workforce belongs to Azsuma, not to the authority. He says "very important concessions" have already been negotiated, without giving figures; the authority is mediating and examining whether the contract's economic terms can be changed.
What the company says — and does not
Azsuma has not commented publicly; no statement from the firm appears in the available reporting. The workers' representatives describe the negotiating session of 21 May 2026 like this: the company's delegates said they would not agree to anything that raised the cost of the service "by so much as a euro", and made no concrete offer. That is one side's version. As long as the firm stays silent, its strongest argument has to be reconstructed: a fixed-price contract cannot be topped up unless someone carries the difference.
What residents would have to expect
If a strike went ahead, collection would not stop entirely. In Spain it counts as an essential service under Article 28.2 of the Constitution; under Article 10.2 of Real Decreto-ley 17/1977 the competent authority sets servicios mínimos, minimum services — in the Canaries, according to the regional government's procedure sheet, the Directorate-General for Labour. Another case shows what that looks like: in Almonte (Huelva), the Andalusian labour directorate set 40 per cent of household collection on 7 August 2026 for a strike at the same company, plus priority collection at health centres, schools and markets. The levels are set case by case.