Spanish health technicians strike over long-delayed Group B status

Health technicians strike: The Group B status owed since 2008

Screening mammograms not being performed. Laboratories halted. Radiotherapy schedules cancelled. Between October 30 and November 4, Senior Health Technicians (TSS) joined a national strike with participation rates between 80% and 90% in many areas, according to organizers. The result is a healthcare system clogged at its base: without them, they argue, there is no diagnosis or treatment. The slogan repeated at rallies is short: "Without Senior Health Technicians, Healthcare doesn't work".

The conflict is not about vocation. It is about pay and paperwork. TSS perform MRIs, CT scans, X-rays, clinical, microbiological, hematological, immunological and genetic analyses, and during the ELbichito-19 pandemic processed thousands of PCR tests. Their training is higher-level, equivalent to a Group B civil service category, but they are paid below that level. The Ministry of Health recognized these educational differences compared to other European countries in three public reports since 1998. The calculation used by the organizers is that they should have been paid as Group B since 2008.

What exactly are Senior Health Technicians demanding?

They are not asking for a free degree, those defending their position insist: they want recognition of the one they already have. The central demand is the equivalence of their qualification to MECES Level 2 (the Spanish framework for qualifications), the creation of advanced accreditation diplomas, the transformation of Higher Vocational Training into university degrees, and a coordination function among different technicians. To this they add an end to job intrusion and salary recognition.

The key argument is international comparison. "We have a qualification that is not compatible anywhere in the world. We are not allowed to work elsewhere due to our low qualification," summarizes spokesperson Francisco Javier Montero. In much of Europe, professions like radiography or radiotherapy are university degrees, not two-year vocational cycles. Here lies the crux: Spain maintained the concept of Higher Vocational Training, which does not exist as such in the rest of the continent, and now this mismatch costs mobility and salary.

The other pillar is education. Organizers complain that the Ministry of Education "does not know or understand" what a Senior Health Technician is, and criticize the proliferation of schools with inadequate training permitted by Education and regional governments. "If you leave Spain and tell anyone you are studying online radiotherapy, they won't believe it," adds Montero.

The clash between Higher Vocational Training and University Degrees

This is where the issue gets tangled. Some argue that accumulating two vocational cycles is not equivalent to a degree, and that if the goal is a university title, the path is through the University. In the case of laboratory sciences, the circulating proposal is to validate two FP programs —Clinical Laboratory and Pathological Anatomy— against a four-year European degree. Radiographers, however, would need to expand their curriculum with a bridging course, because diagnostic radiology content no longer fits into two years.

On the other side weighs a difficult-to-rebut argument: precedent. Former ATS (Nursing Assistants) were two years plus practicals and ended up equated with university Nursing graduates. If that was accepted, why not this? Critics respond that downward equalization is precisely what has degraded the system: forcing the matching of different qualifications to avoid comparative grievances ends up cheapening the whole.

The detail that disorients is real wages. A radiographer with shifts and supplements can exceed €2,000 net in a large hospital, according to circulating testimonies; another profile with 37 years of seniority and numerous supplements stays at €1,700. And on the same floor, a postdoctoral researcher or biomedical engineer earns around €28,000 gross per year, while a nurse moves between €38,000 and €48,000. The healthcare fiefdom has clear owners: physicians and mid-level technicians. Others look from outside.

What is the strike paralyzing in hospitals?

The impact is measurable. The strike is causing the cancellation and delay of thousands of mammograms in the breast cancer screening program, worsening an already delicate situation in early detection. Diagnostic tests and services in laboratories, imaging, radiotherapy, and pathological anatomy are suspended and delayed. "If laboratories stop, radiology services stop; ultimately, hospitals stop," laments spokesperson Juan Carlos Rodríguez, who assures they have been trying to negotiate unsuccessfully for months.

The protest also has a cost in coexistence. At rallies outside hospitals, sirens, loudspeakers, and banners have been used, and some have complained that the noise reached rooms of seriously ill patients. This is the uncomfortable flip side of any healthcare strike: the right to protest clashes with the right to rest for those hospitalized.

The background: Healthcare equalizing downwards

Beyond the specific case, this episode portrays a structural vice in the Spanish labor market. Each group negotiates its status looking at the neighbor, not at the value of its function. A2s want to be A1s, some Cs want to be A2s, and increases chain together without anyone reviewing the complete map. The result is a system where education and salary decouple, and where the social elevator stalls: if a technician with two years of FP and a researcher with a PhD end up in similar brackets, the signal sent by the market is that studying more does not compensate.

It is not a problem exclusive to healthcare. It is the same logic pushing technicians to look at Group B while Group B almost no longer exists in administration. The question hanging in the air is not whether TSS are right about something —they are regarding the European mismatch— but who pays the bill to fix it. And that bill, with public healthcare already strained, no one signs for free.