Four employees of British company Mitie, one of them now a former employee, have filed complaints against the company for alleged civil and criminal infringements.
Mitie provides service to passport control at Palma Son Sant Joan Airport; it has been doing so since November last year. In February it was accused of not complying with various regulations, such as not paying overtime and not paying a bonus for having extra languages.
Nadia Lazarova quit at the end of February. This was due to substantial modifications to her employment contract. "This is the fourth company to have managed the service. There hadn't been any problems. When Mitie arrived, there was subrogation and they made me and many colleagues sign documents that reduced our working hours. This was totally illegal. When you go from one company to another, you have to continue with the same contract and do the same hours."
She claims that the company forced them to sign. "There were people who signed out of fear. They won the bid for the service with a much lower offer than the one by the previous company. If you lower the budget almost by half, how do you think they will make a future profit?"
Demands to make good alleged non-payments were lodged with the courts in Palma in February, while one employee filed a complaint with the Guardia Civil in March for a crime against workers' rights.