ATE Secretary General Rodolfo Aguiar highlighted the impact of the strike on Thursday and denounced the possibility of thousands of layoffs in the coming hours.

The union leader confirmed that the government called for negotiations in the midst of the protests and insisted on allowing an agreement for a salary increase in accordance with the current context.

“We have managed to get them to call us. This is a first step. Now we have to prevent the meetings from becoming another farce,” said Aguiar. “The salary cuts are continuous. We need to start a process of recovery of all income. Our expectations have to continue to be focused on a plan of struggle,” he added.

Aguiar also recalled that three thousand labor contracts expire tomorrow and more than 50 thousand at the end of March. “We demand that all these contracts be automatically renewed and given full stability. State workers will not accept that the fiscal cost of the reduction of withholdings on the countryside and the elimination of taxes on the purchase of high-end cars be compensated with our sources of employment, the closure of organizations or the privatization of public companies,” he said, and questioned the appointment by presidential decree of two Supreme Court judges (Ariel Lijo and Manuel García Mansilla) and impunity in the face of fraud and corruption.

ATE members have also asked for the extension of a pension moratorium, the restoration of the Sustainability Guarantee Fund, the cessation of health care underfunding policies and the repeal of a decree that transforms Yacimientos Carboníferos Río Turbio into a public limited company.

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