Unemployment and mobilization in Uruguay “against hunger and …

Uruguay faced a 24-hour strike on Thursday “against hunger and inequalities, for work and wages” called by the country’s trade union center, the PIT-CNT. Despite the cessation of activities observed by agents of the State, the bank and health among others, the day showed mobility in the streets, open shops and, although with less crowds than usually public transport worked.

The unions took advantage of the day to collect signatures against the Urgent Considerations Act (LUC), adjustment project of the government of Luis Lacalle Pou approved in 2020. At the worst time of the pandemic in Uruguay, with more than five thousand dead since March 13, 2020, nearly four thousand of them in the last two months and half, of the PIT-CNT they guaranteed the safety measures while asking that the march be done without getting out of the vehicles.

The demands of this day are not very different from those of the first general strike against the right-wing government of Lacalle Pou on September 17, when the LUC, the emergence of popular cooking pots and the loss of real wages and sources D ’employment. However, this time the economic and social impact of the pandemic is more strongly felt.

The Secretary General of the PIT-CNT, Marcelo abdala, noted that the measure is in “defense of life”, with reference to deaths caused by the coronavirus, and in demand of a “national dialogue” in order to providing a solution to “over 100,000 poor people and about 80,000 newly unemployed”. Abdala mentioned that these figures were in evidence after the launch of the “solidarity salary”, a program of 15,000 temporary jobs for which 230,000 people came forward. “This tells you about the situation in the country,” said the union leader. The Daily.

Among the urgent measures demanded by the union leadership stand out establish minimum unemployment insurance similar to the national minimum wage and, as long as the health emergency lasts, guarantee payment of health insurance from the first day of absence of the worker and not after the third. They also call for resolving the transfer of disabled and elderly people to vaccination centers.

The main demonstration of the day was a caravan of cars that circulated in several avenues of Montevideo until reaching Plaza Independencia in front of the Executive Tower, seat of government. The mobilization also aimed to collect signatures to call a referendum and attempt to repeal 135 articles of the LUC.

To this end, union representatives have created positions across the country, as 700 thousand signatures are needed before July 9, one year after its promulgation in Parliament, consider holding a popular consultation on the measure. In the words of the president of the PIT-CNT, Fernando Pereira, the LUC “is regressive in matters of labor law, with regard to the right to strike, the regulation of pickets or the public enterprise”.

One of the biggest fears of the day was the possibility that the strike could affect the mass vaccination against covid-19. Despite the fact that the Executive chose not to postpone the vaccination day this Thursday, as it did with the commemoration of May 1, transport and health workers directly linked to the vaccination campaign went to their posts.