At the beginning of the century, the administration of Mariano Arana began to cook a new tender for the collection of garbage in the center of the city. The person in charge of the service had been the Benito Roggio consortium, when Montevideo did not yet know about containers. With the novel system already implemented In 2003, the Plata Environmental Consortium (CAP) was selected among nine companies, in charge of cleaning the area since then, until Mayor Carolina Cosse announced this Monday –almost 20 years later– who intended to resume the management of the service.
Despite the fact that the Association of Municipal Employees and Workers (Adeom) was already crying out loud against “privatization” in those times without containers, and that for the first time in decades they found an echo to their claims, the union leadership barely managed to put their differences aside to celebrate the news at a press conference. Minutes before posing in front of cameras and microphones, the Executive Council of the guild discussed what public position to adopt.
Secretary General Valeria Ripoll finally affirmed that Cosse’s decision was “aligned” with Adeom’s purposes, while she explained – sitting next to the union’s president, AnĂbal Varela – the brief details aired by the mayor and her trusted team in meeting with them a day before. The non-renewal of the concession, the authorities explained, would imply a transition process through the formation of an administration trust similar to the one that governs TV Ciudad, co-managed between the Municipality of Montevideo and the National Development Corporation.
However, the president of Adeom, AnĂbal Varela, slipped a more critical position than that of his partner, who had noted the announcement as a conquest: “This is a question of detaching or sticking to the administration. The administration trust is a PPP (public-private partnership), and the union movement has always been against it”said the historical leader to The Observer. In this sense, the workers debated behind closed doors that, although they had taken a decisive step towards a historic approach, they were still far from concretizing the intended remunicipalization.
From the Montevideo opposition, the Ministry of the Environment, and even ranks within the Broad Front, there was speculation that Cosse was definitively seeking union peace, something that the mayor herself took it upon herself to deny hours later: “It is a political definitionwithout a doubt, because what we are defining is the Montevideo Más Verde strategy, which is working in the rest of Montevideo, faced with a vacuum because the contract for this company expires, we extend it to all of Montevideo”.
The Environment Minister, Adrián Peña, had questioned on Tuesday morning: “I listened to the mayor and at no time did she say that this was because they were dissatisfied with the service (of CAP), then if it is not because of the service, it is a political decision. I know that the service was satisfactory in that area,” he told Universal Radio’s Meeting Point.
Cosse replied that “here there is no bending of anyone’s handthere is a political definition of the IM to assume control of urban collection and cleaningwith the premise that jobs are not lost.” The issue was handled in a reserved manner in recent months, to the point that the leadership of the commune informed both Adeom and the company of its resolution just hours before release the statement.
From the environment of the mayor they justify that the measure will allow lowering the costs that until now meant a profit margin for CAP. Community sources told The Observer that this will not affect the fiscal result, but that the new surplus generated will be redistributed to the rest of the department’s operations, which for its part has certain innovations planned, especially with the changing the pickup matrix in housing cooperatives.
The director of Environmental Development, Guillermo Moncecchi, had reported that the hiring cost some US$14 million per year. Apart from being a long-standing trade union platform, remunicipalization is also a historic cry of the Communist Party -Beyond the fact that Ripoll criticized the management of Ana Olivera for having been one of the “worst” in cleaning- and the bases of the Broad Front in Montevideowhile the intended change of course sows doubts among the more moderate on the left.
Diego Battiste
Adeom celebrated advancing in a historic approach
Hannibal Varela criticized in the press conference a “mismanagement” of garbage by CAP Due to the lack of “resources” and sufficient “machinery”. Ripoll, for his part, said that this part of Montevideo it is “very easy” to maintain “in the best conditions”, given the road facilities included. The general secretary of Adeom emphasized that the administration of Carolina Cosse at the head of the Capital City Hall “It is the first” that “sat down to listen to the workers, at least in 15 years.”
The change of course determined by the administration will now open a stage of negotiation with the company, in which the departmental government will determine that some 300 CAP workers keep their jobs. Another of the pending issues will be the incorporation of new machinery so that the administration trust assumes the tasks.
CAP has been discharging seven anti-vandal container collection trucks onto the streets – different from those in the commune’s fleet – as well as another dozen vehicles with cleaning support tasks. From the Consortium they preferred to call themselves silent while waiting for the negotiations to begin with the Municipality of Montevideo.
