Centers employing 10,000 people with disabilities are at their limit.

BarcelonaTo illustrate the financial obstacles, Artur Feijóo unfolds a chart. It shows the payment schedule for the subsidies received by TEB—the cooperative group he leads—to pay the salaries of the approximately 650 people with disabilities employed in its special work centers and the support staff who accompany them. He says they only just received 100% of the subsidies for 2024 this November, while for 2025 they have only received 15% so far. "We're at our limit," Feijóo admits. The delay in receiving these funds from the Generalitat (the regional government) has forced them to take out loans to pay salaries and cover the interest—between 60,000 and 70,000 euros—on these loans. If they manage to break even this year, it will be because the cooperative's members have made contributions to avoid losses. "We've been living in uncertainty for many years," Feijóo laments.

The case of TEB is not isolated. This December, Dincat—the federation representing people with intellectual disabilities in Catalonia—launched a campaign to denounce the "institutional mistreatment by the Government," following several grievances that have directly impacted the finances of social initiative special employment centers (CETIS), which employ more than 10,000 people in Catalonia. On the one hand, the organization claims that the Catalan government accumulated a debt of 153 million euros with entities in the sector, which have had to advance capital to pay salaries and, like TEB, have had to take on debt to cover these payments. Since making this outcry public, they have received partial payment of the debt, 46 million euros corresponding to the first five months of the year. However, during this time, the centers have also incurred 3 million euros in interest to keep payroll up to date.

Added to this debt are the changes in the criteria for granting subsidies that cover part of the salaries of support staff at special employment centers: psychologists, social workers, and educators who are responsible for assisting these workers with disabilities to ensure their work is "safe, dignified, and adapted." According to Dincat, these subsidies have been reduced by 5.3 million euros because, starting this year, they are calculated based on the exact number of employees the center had at the time of applying for the subsidy, without taking into account contracts that had ended before or those formalized later. Time spent on sick leave is also not included. The federation rejects this criterion because it believes it ignores the fact that this is a group that continues to need support when unable to work, as often happens with sick leave for mental health reasons. "It's a management issue with a significant economic impact," warns Víctor Galmés, director of Dincat.

Dincat has asked the Catalan government to implement changes to prevent the situation from becoming entrenched. The federation met with the Department of Business and Labor before the Christmas holidays and will meet again in January with the aim of resolving these problems. Meanwhile, the federation has conveyed its complaints to the various parliamentary groups so they can pressure the Catalan government. "Our centers don't want to stop providing support, nor do they want to have to choose who can continue working and who can't. They will continue to do so, but many will close at a loss in 2025," says Galmés. The Catalan government insists that it has already allocated a total of 133 million euros to the various programs that guarantee job security for people with disabilities in special employment centers (CETs). They say this amount will increase when the corresponding portion is granted in the last quarter, which was announced in advance and published on December 18. "There is no outstanding debt with the CETs (Centers for Technological Education), and the grant applications are proceeding through the administrative process, with payments being made once the process is complete," sources from the Department of Business and Labor indicate. The Minister of the department, Miquel Sàmper, admitted in the Catalan Parliament on December 18th that there had been a delay in payments, but emphasized that the budget for these centers has been increasing year after year.

Rethink the model

However, the Catalan government's statements contrast sharply with the lingering concerns at TEB during the Christmas holidays. The center is one of the largest in Catalonia and has been diversifying its activities since its founding in 1965, both to adapt to the changing economic landscape and to offer a wider range of jobs to its employees. They have a tempera paint factory, a line of food products such as fresh mushrooms, and provide packaging and handling services for third parties in sectors like publishing and cosmetics. However, the cooperative's director, Artur Feijóo, points out that despite reinvesting profits in process improvements, they cannot be as competitive as a "regular" company, as other workplaces are called. "We have never been able to pass on the increased costs," he adds, referring to the recent inflationary crisis. It's important to note that special employment centers pay their employees with disabilities around the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI), and therefore, personnel costs have risen in line with the increases of recent years. Beyond the urgency of the overdue payments, Galmés encourages updating a Catalan model that was pioneering in its origins—it was families of people with disabilities who joined together to generate employment for this group—but has become stagnant. In this regard, he points to the emergence of other projects that, unlike those integrated within Dincat, are for profit and require rethinking the system for distributing subsidies, which in his opinion should be agreed upon and multi-year to reduce instability.