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The workers of the Administration of Airports and Auxiliary Services to Air Navigation (Aasana) activated a hunger strike on Monday in the main airports of the country and prepare an indefinite stoppage of activities for Wednesday.
This has been confirmed by the leader of the Cochabamba sector, Víctor Ticona, who reiterated that with the protests they seek the resignation of the entity’s director, Arminda Choque, and the payment of overtime and wages owed.
“We have been making peaceful protests and we have radicalized, we are going on a hunger strike tomorrow (Monday), on Tuesday and Wednesday, December 1, no one flies after 08.00 if we do not have a predictable response.”
This Monday a meeting with government authorities of the sector is scheduled, however, the sector remains firm in its state of emergency.
You can also read: Montaño says that Aasana strikes point to Bolivia losing ICAO category 1
From Santa Cruz they also confirmed the pressure measure and announced that they will paralyze the more than 40 air terminals.
“Tomorrow (Monday) at 09:30, Aasana Santa Cruz begins the hunger strike and on Wednesday, December 1, nothing commercial is going to fly, only for emergencies”, informed a leader to the same network.
“This time there will be no convictions and the strike will be total,” he stressed.
The previous days, Aasana workers carried out the peaceful seizure of some airports in demand of compliance with the sector specifications.
“We demand the payment of salaries, but only when we mobilize do they start looking for resources. They said that the full October salary would be paid on Saturday but only the basic credit was given. There are months due of November, December, January and March. There is no payment plan and agreement to see dates. 9.7 million Bolivians are owed overtime, ”explained the workers’ leader, Néstor Villarroel.
The Government ensures that the agreements are being complied with and that the mobilization has a political nature that seeks to affect the audit that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) carries out since last Tuesday.
“I ask you to reflect and, obviously, these darts are pointing to the ICAO audit observing several situations and we lose the category 1 that Bolivia has at this moment,” said the Minister of Public Works, Édgar Montaño, after ensuring that the conflict affect the credibility of the state.