The conference, held on the 9th, brought together national and local authorities and focused on the need to strengthen joint work between the State, employers and workers to reduce occupational risks. The general secretary of the MTSS, Belén Rico Skerl, led the opening.
Then, the authorities held a press conference led by the mayor of Colonia, Guillermo Rodríguez, together with the inspector general of Labor, Luis Puig, and the deputy director general of Labor, Andrea Bouret.
Union objectives and diagnosis
The initiative is part of a national campaign that seeks to raise awareness about accident prevention in a scenario where precariousness and informality increase occupational risks.
In dialogue with EL ECO, the departmental president of the Single National Union of Construction and Annexes in Colonia, Gustavo Robatti, stated that these problems have persisted since previous years.
“When a work is organized, with prevention technicians and areas of union participation, the problems are corrected,” he explained.
The leader also warned about the high number of accidents registered in the State Insurance Bank and demanded more inspectors to strengthen controls. According to him, informality exposes workers more because they prioritize immediate income in the face of a lack of stability.
Departmental reality and claims
Robatti explained that in Colonia informality is distributed in different sectors and that the department does not have large industrial concentrations, after the loss of job sources in recent years.
At the national level, he recalled that construction recorded 15 deaths in 2025 – which led to a 24-hour general strike in September – and two more at the beginning of 2026, including that of a 24-year-old worker.
In Cologne there are no recent fatal accidents, although he mentioned a historical case of a foreman who died after falling from a height. According to him, this is also linked to the lower number of large works in the department.
The SUNCA demands the approval of an occupational health law, the creation of a registry of violating companies and the installation of a prosecutor’s office specialized in workplace accidents, proposals that the union defined at its congress on February 6 and 7.
