The strike in public education will be on June 15
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Union leaders have said that salaries lost 8 percent of their purchasing power during the pandemic EFE/Federico Anfitti/Archivo
The Ministry of Labor and Social Security called for this Thursday the salary negotiation tables corresponding to the Confederation of Organizations of State Officials (COFE), the judicial sector and the National Administration of Public Education (ANEP). In addition, trade unionsthey set a national strike in public education for June 15.
The general secretary of the Inter-Union Plenary of Workers – National Workers Convention (known as Pit-Cnt), Elbia Pereira, considered this call “late”, after two suspensions and a little over a month for the entry of the Accountability project to Parliament, which is scheduled for June 30. The general secretary of the National Federation of Secondary Education Teachers (Fenapes), José Olivera, considered the same.
“Because of the salary loss that public officials in general have been experiencing, but especially those of education, we had signed an act with the government that established that in the first days of April, once the referendum passed (for the Law of Urgent Consideration), we were going to be summoned to arrive at the figure percentage loss.We have a loss figure of around 8% and it seems that it is not what the government manages”, Pereira told radio Montecarlo.
José Olivera, for For his part, he expressed that “it is clear that the government in 2020 and 2021 did not make the efforts to call the meetings to reach an agreement and, in fact, today there is no collective agreement in the sector,” according to El País.
Meanwhile, the union leaders considered some messages from the Executive Power to be contradictory, such as the fact that “Zero Expenditure Accountability” has been said and now there seems to be some margin, Pereira said. The secretary of Fenapes, for his part, made reference to the budget cut suffered by ANEP, “which implies 80 million dollars less than the budget until 2020.” “Education workers are going to work 19 days for free a year, that’s what the 8% wage loss means,” he added.
“I doubt that in this framework it is possible to make substantial progress and fulfill the electoral commitment of the president that in this government no one was going to lose purchasing power in real terms in their salary. What is taking shape is a combination of factors that will lead to a strong conflict that may be expressed in 2022 or 2023″, he concluded.
In this context, trade unions Uruguayans set a national strike with mobilization for all branches of education on June 15 , as reported by José Olivera. A 100% recovery in wage losses in 2021 is claimed, as well as the creation of new positions in all sectors of education. In addition, they reject that various changes in education are imposed by the authorities.
José Olivera indicated that, among the proposals, one is also included “against the anti-union persecution that is registered in the ANEP” and made reference to facts such as the actions of the Investigative Commission of union hours -which worked on alleged irregularities in union licenses- and the summaries of high school teachers for posing for a photo with political identifications. Part of the text of the call reads: “Enough of the persecution”.
The union measure includes officials from ANEP, from the University of the Republic (Udelar), from the University Technology (UTEC), as well as those workers from the private sector grouped in the National Union of Workers and Private Education Workers (Sintep).