The former employee of the Municipal Urban Management Company (Geursa) claims his dismissal was unjustified and linked to internal tensions preceding the Valka case investigation. The plaintiff accuses former Geursa manager, Marina Más, and the head of Legal Advisory, Luis Pérez Cañón, of pressure and harassment.
The Valka case investigates the use of access keys to the municipal IT system and possible external interference. The aim is to determine if credentials were personal or shared, which could compromise the traceability of files. Attention is focused on former Urban Planning coordinator, José Manuel Setién, suspected of remote access without formal authorization.
The municipal legal defense of the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria City Council requested its acquittal, arguing that the employment relationship is exclusively with Geursa. For its part, Geursa opposed the lawsuit, defending the disciplinary dismissal agreed on January 29, 2024, based on repeated serious misconduct, including “false” internal complaints, disobedience, and harassment towards the manager.
He is not dismissed for filing complaints, but for filing false complaints.
The company denied the dismissal was retaliatory, stating that the employee acknowledged the reported incidents did not constitute harassment. Two complaints from 2023 were mentioned, one against the financial director and another against Marina Más and Luis Pérez Cañón, both archived due to lack of harassment. Geursa considers the use of the complaints channel in these terms a serious infraction and dissociates the dismissal from the plaintiff's prior union activity.
Reasons for dismissal also included “constant disobedience” to instructions, refusal to modify corporate communications, resistance to handing over IT system access keys, and delays in duties. A witness hired in 2024 to regain control of systems confirmed the lack of necessary access keys for normal operation.
Other witnesses supported the company's version, describing inappropriate treatment towards manager Marina Más, who, according to an employee, expressed “distress and nervousness” when interacting with the plaintiff. However, other witnesses offered a different perspective, recounting incidents where the manager appeared “agitated” and spoke abruptly to the plaintiff.
The compliance officer explained that staff were informed that false complaints constitute serious misconduct and concluded that there was no harassment by the accused, and that the plaintiff made “spurious use” of the complaints channel.
