The Railway Union held a mobilization last Friday that included “burial” and “cremation” symbolic of AFE, as defined by the union. The workers burned roofs and blocked the street in front of the company’s workshops on Aparicio Saravia and Rivarola in the Peñarol neighborhood. There they placed a coffin wrapped in black cloth accompanied by a cross simulating the burial of the body of the entity.
The union has been demanding for several months for investments and entry of personnel, both for the passenger service and for the cargo operator. In this sense, they maintain that State policy “has led the public railways to the debacle, looting and dispossession”.
Furthermore, they understand that while the central railway has “clear prospects”, with millionaire investment and state-of-the-art technology, the rest of the rail transport carried out by AFE, rice, wood, fuel, cement, limestone and others, “would be left in a defenseless situation”, as denounced some time ago in the Parlament.
PIT-CNT portal
On the other hand, the president of the union, Washington Sánchez, explained to the PIT-CNT website that the government has not come forward to discuss the restructuring of AFE.
“We have sent letters to the authorities, to their advisers, to the minister himself (by José Luis Falero) and we have not received any response. (…) We believe that the last stab wound, the one that fatally wounds, is being given by the current government,” he said.
While the cut was carried out and until the end of the day, a train carrying 1,000 tons of cement was paralyzed. Measures were also taken by the driving and station personnel, which affected a private excursion that had to be suspended.
