[Trade union action in times of pandemic.]

Due to the sudden impact that the Covid-19 pandemic had on people´s lives in March 2020 after the declaration of the state of alarm and the limitations that were adopted regarding the mobility and confinement of the population, there were repercussions both in health as well as at work and the economy of the country. For this reason, Comisiones Obreras took on the challenge of informing, advising and training workers on the adoption of preventive measures and we took part in the social dialogue so that the regulatory protection would be the best guarantee for people who became ill, reduced their work activity or had to continue their essential activity with the best health and safety conditions; collaborating with the Administration and demanding its intervention in the areas that required it, as well as demanding the consideration of occupational disease for staff exposed in the health and social-health sector. This crisis has highlighted an aspect that has not yet been overcome: the necessary coordination that must exist between the Health and Labour authorities in order to attend to health in companies in its broadest sense, that is, Public Health. Whoever controls compliance with occupational health aspects must have the competences and power to act in the field of Public Health.