The United Central Workers of Colombia (CUT) reaffirmed on Tuesday its decision to support the campaign of Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez in the second presidential round< /h2>
Dozens of people, among whom the flags of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia (CUT) stand out, participate in the day of demonstrations called Paro Nacional, called throughout the country to reject, among others, the tax reform of the Government today, in Bogotá ( Colombia). EFE/Carlos Ortega
On June 19 Colombians will go out to vote to elect their new president between Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernández so that from August 7 he replaces Iván Duque in the House of Nariño . Less than 20 days before the presidential runoff elections,the social and union movements define which of the two candidates they will support in this electoral phase.
One of those unions that already announced its support was the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia (CUT), a platform that brings together several of the workers’ unions from different sectors of the country. The CUT reaffirmed this Tuesday, May 31, its decision to support the campaign of Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez in the second presidential round.
Through a statement, the workers’ union called on citizens to support Petro and France on June 19, as well as to “redouble efforts in this task for democracy and change.” b>
“The program of Petro and France claims the role of the public in fundamental rights in health and education. Likewise, it calls for progress in decent work and in the rights of women, youth, sexual and ethnic diversity”, the CUT stated in the statement.
The CUT highlighted that the government program proposed by the Historical Pact expresses “the necessary and most convenient measures to defend life, peace and democracy and an important rectification of the worst measures of the neoliberal recipe book, as well as a determined fight against corruption”, expressed the union.
In the elections that took place last Sunday, May 29, the candidate of the Historical Pact obtained 40.3% of the total votes and hopes to reach the Presidency of the Republic in his third attempt. This Tuesday’s CUT statement ends by saying that: “All unions must redouble their efforts in this task for democracy and change.”
But the support of the CUT to the candidate of the left is not new. On April 28, a month before the first presidential round, Francisco Maltés, president of the CUT, stated that: “We liberal trade unionists have made the decision to join Gustavo Petro as president and Francia Márquez as vice president, since that we consider that Mr. Federico Gutiérrez represents the continuity of President Duque’s labor and social policies, which have increased hunger, inequality, labor informality and unemployment,” he said at the time.
One day before the official pronouncement of the CUT, its president, through the Twitter account, referred to Rodolfo Hernández, who defeated Federico Gutiérrez last Sunday and will fight for the presidency against Petro.
“In addition to corruption scandals, Rodolfo Hernández in his mayor’s office refused to comply with a labor agreement, reconverted official workers to public employees, limited collective bargaining. Can someone who does not comply with a labor agreement and ignores conventional rights be called a democrat?”, Maltés emphasized.
On other issues, the Unitary Central of Workers also warned this Tuesday that the unemployment rate in the country continues to be very high, despite the fact that the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane) revealed that for April it was 11.2%.
The CUT prosecutor, Fabio Arias, pointed out that it is worrying that different regions still have a large number of unemployed people. “The unemployment rate is still very high in Colombia when compared to those of 2019, it is one point above what it was in that same month in that year, which is what it should be compared with,” he said.< /p>