The protest in front of the headquarters of the Constitutional Council was convened for October 3rd by the Unitary Central of Workers (CUT) and the National Group of Tax Employees (ANEF). Representatives from other sectors will join it.
The advisors of the (right-wing) Chile Vamos coalition and the (extreme right) Republican Party are taking advantage of their majority in the Constitutional Council to draft a Constitution tailored to their needs, which limits the rights of workers, president of CUT David Acuña denounced.
“Unfortunately it has become a delegitimized process,” Acuña said, and went on to add that the country needs a Constitution that enables rights, not restricts them.
The union leader warned that democracy is in danger and called on all civil society organizations to create a common front against the draft, which seeks to undermine the fundamental pillars of Chile.
“The Republicans and the parties of Chile Vamos are sabotaging a process that was legitimately and democratically born from the citizens,” José Pérez Debelli, president of the ANEF, warned for his part in statements to the El Siglo newspaper.
The Constitution that the most conservative sectors seek to impose would violate the right to strike, gender parity and the voluntary interruption of pregnancy in cases of rape, fetal infeasibility and danger to the mother’s life. It would also favor the privatization of services such as health and education, and elevate to constitutional status the Pension Fund Administrators, which profit from workers’ contributions and provide poverty pensions.
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