This had not happened since July 1973, in protest at a coup d’etat in the country, which sparked mixed feelings even among the union’s leadership.

The union’s president, Gregorio Rodríguez, explained on television that this step was taken due to Stipanicic’s intransigence to negotiate a collective agreement that the business side denounced unilaterally and without consultation, despite a propitious mediation by the Ministry of Labor.

He assured that the union and FANCAP had previously “defined a safe and planned 24-hour strike”.

He also affirmed the dispatch of fuel is supported by a storage and two tanks, and criticized that, however, Stipanicic announced that it will import it taking advantage of a kind of conjunctural price plateau.

Rodríguez stressed that on this date in 2003, “a people aware of and committed to the social, productive and economic role of public companies defended it in a historic referendum.”

He reiterated that the strike this day is also to protest against government plans to privatize the national cement industry.

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