Social Justice Day. Eduardo Ruiz, president of the Andalusian Council of Social Graduate Colleges

World Social Justice Day, which we celebrate every year on February 20, is a day that invites us to reflect on the type of society we build. Social Justice is also a motto that represents a group that  works to make it possible:social graduates. Social Justice is cohesion, collective well-being and work towards a fairer, more egalitarian and more humane society.

For our Mutua this day is not just another symbolic date, it also has a special value. Our activity is closely linked to the mission of the social graduates: ensure occupational health, prevention, social protection and defense of the rights of workers. Fraternidad-Muprespa shares a common vision with this group: that of work as a safe, dignified and fair space.

Today we approach Eduardo Ruiz Vegas,  practicing social graduate since 1996. He began his career on the governing board of the College of Malaga in 2006, as head of various positions, and has held the presidency of the Official College of Social Graduates of Malaga and Melilla since 2022, and since last February 12 he has been the president of the Andalusian Council of Official Colleges of Social Graduates.

On a professional level, he has extensive experience in the field of Labor law, Social Security and labor advice to companies, especially SMEs and professional firms. In addition to his professional practice, he has maintained an active participation in the representative bodies of the profession, promoting initiatives linked to collegiate modernization, continuous training and the defense of professional practice. Likewise, he has collaborated with the University of Malaga as an external professional in training activities linked to labor relations and labor consulting.

What message would you like to convey to citizens and professionals as the new head of the Andalusian Council? 

As guidelines for citizens, it will focus on providing continuity and deepening the demand for a necessary reinforcement of the Social Jurisdiction through the creation of new Social Courts, now called Instance Courts, as well as improving the service to citizens who are immersed in these matters with the definitive boost of social intrajudicial mediation. Also, the strengthening of the network of free labor legal guidance services that has been offered by our group for years and which is so well accepted among users.

Of course, facilitate, as much as possible, the continued training of colleagues so that the service to citizens is of the highest level and excellence. And collaboration with public and private institutions that share our environment of activity, well, in the end, these synergies have the common objective of making people's lives easier. For the professionals who make up our group, it is, among other missions, to advance in the improvement of electronic notification systems, as well as in the defense of the right to digital disconnection, to continue insisting on the incorporation of social graduates in technical teams of public administrations and to facilitate generational change. As well as investigate and try to facilitate all professional opportunities and skills that allow the prosperity of our members, in the development of our profession.

Our commitment is to continue working, through dialogue and institutional cooperation, for a fairer, more efficient and socially cohesive Andalusia", reaffirming our vocation for public service and the strategic role in the defense of social justice, companies and working people in Andalusia. Social graduates are an essential pillar of the system of labor relations and social protection.

What priorities/lines of work/specific challenges are set to reinforce closeness with members?

The closeness of our collegiate institutions, both schools and councils, with our colleagues is essential, possibly it is the main task that we must keep in mind, since this relationship of closeness is where we can detect the needs and issues that really must be faced and set their priorities, we cannot forget that assuming a position or responsibility for a group must be loaded with the spirit of service and precisely, that is why we are here to help. 

In that sense, we are going to implement the necessary paths and actions to help in that sense and that the group sees in the colleagues who offer our time for the profession, true companions on the journey.

After the centenary of the profession, what legacy do you think should guide the new generations of Social Graduates and how do you plan to promote it from the Andalusian Council?

The centenary has been a year of celebration, but above all, a year of reflection, since, remembering everything that has happened since 1925 to the present day, we have had to recognize that our profession was not only created by a need that the Ministry of Labor of the time saw as imperative, but because the extraordinary evolution that has taken place and that has brought us to the present with a social impact as deep as that which affects us for everything we do in our professional practice, should allow us to clearly see the importance, the pride of being social graduates, as well as that this profession, already recognized as essential in the time of Covid, takes on the role of essential, even more so if we add the preparation and skills in the field of Human Resources, which companies and in general all organizations urgently need to implement in the face of challenges such as growing absenteeism and the reconciliation of the lives of workers with a productivity that allows the subsistence of companies.

For all these reasons, from our Andalusian Council, we have a clear line of strengthening the feeling of belonging to a key profession in the social relationships that affect all citizens, almost without exception.

Labor mediation is taking on a growing role in social justice. What reforms do you consider essential for this tool to be truly effective in Andalusia?

Mediation is an essential challenge and its success is essential, given the workload of the courts, the citizen affected by a judicial procedure must have alternative means that may be more satisfactory, as well as allow them to close the crisis that affects them in the least burdensome way possible. Hence, this conflict resolution system has the great virtue of facilitating understanding and closing wounds, something that other available means may not have.

For this reason, the reforms that we see as necessary must come to facilitate the referral of matters to mediators, social graduates, who already form the pools of mediators available in all the Social Graduate schools of Andalusia, as a result of the Agreement that last December 2024, this Council signed with the Department of Justice of the Junta de Andalucía and that we hope can be developed in these coming months.

We also see it as very necessary for the Administration itself to carry out dissemination campaigns about the benefits of mediation in this area.

In recent years, the Colleges have promoted modernization and digitalization initiatives. What technological advances do you think will most profoundly transform the professional practice of the Social Graduate in the next decade?

Currently, we have two main objectives, on the one hand, the professionalization of the offices, their methods and the ways of relating with administrations and clients, so that they can better adapt to the new demands that our field of action imposes on us, as well as the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence, all of this, in order to improve our services and gain efficiency.

You have highlighted on several occasions the importance of ongoing training. What new skills should professionals prioritize to continue being references in labor advice?

In relation to the previous point, it is essential that offices adapt to new organizational demands, hence training in office management is a priority, as well as continuing with consistency in the technical training of our professional skills, since the regulations in the socio-labor and social security field are of permanent change that does not allow a pause; as well as focusing on mediation and human resource management techniques.

The traffic jam in social jurisdiction is a recurring problem. What role can Professional Associations play to contribute to more agile and accessible labor justice?

As I explained when referring to intrajudicial social mediation, we are convinced that labor matters that are judicialized in topics such as family and work conciliation, distribution of working hours, distribution of work shifts, vacations, etc., are matters that social graduates know very well and that, without a doubt, we can collaborate with our pool of mediators from the Andalusian schools for the discharge of pendency that has collapsed the Social Courts in our Community.

On February 20, World Social Justice Day is celebrated. What meaning does this date have for you?

Starting from the fact that the motto of the Social Graduates is “social justice”, I think it would be all said, although if I expand just a little, I could add that our profession was born to deal with justice in the social field, so this term, so dear to all social graduates, is the definition of our DNA. Graduated Social and Social Justice with inseparable concepts.