June 15, 2023, 11:10 PM
June 15, 2023, 11:10 PM
An audio circulates on social networks, it is -presumably- a meeting that the new auditor Luis Gonzalo Araoz held with workers from Fassil-Santa Cruz. Although their spokesman, Juan Carlos Alarcón, does not know who or how it could have leaked, he points out that what is said in this is consistent with what his colleagues stated that he was treated with the inspector.
Although Araoz tries to be conciliatory and expresses -in the audio- that the workers have the right to claim their compensationalso tells them that within 12 months there will be no bank.
“(…) They are going to sue me and we are going to sue; and that judgment can take… I I’m going to make sure that it lasts five years, I’m going to chicanear with everything. At that time (recently) it will be determined that they are paid. And it’s not a threat, nothing”, Araoz is heard saying, to which a female voice makes him note that yes looks like a threat.
Then return to a conciliatory stance: “I want to come to a reasonable, amicable agreement with you. You have every right to accept this proposal that I am making to you, that I am going to formalize it in an assembly. But if there are 20, 50, 100 people who do not want to (accept), they have every right, ”he says.
But he points out that, yes, the money that corresponds to them will only be able to see it After five years, and not in the short term, as it seeks to reconcile, in a payment plan.
“We are going to initiate the action and we’ll see each other in five years; they are going to win, rest assured; the worker wins the (labor) trials, but in five years. Surely there will be a judicial deposit, so that they get paid from there. I am not going to pay them, because they will never see me again, ”she points out later.
From the audio it is known that, at least 900 workers are still active, doing different tasks. Araoz points out that they will be given a civil contract, only for June and that there is a list of those who are actually working. That contract will be made by Fassil in intervention, since the separation will be cut off on May 31.
Asked about this group, Alarcón indicated that there are people working in different areas, such as legal, human resources, credit, even reception and cleaning. Regarding the future of these people, he indicated that there is no certainty, since different groups from different cities have been given different agreements. However, he claimed that those people noor come voluntarily, but in response to a circular that obliges them to fulfill those functions.
The workers are going to march
This Friday, at 8:30 a.m., a march of former workers of Banco Fassil, now seized, will march from Plaza 24 de Septiembre to the Departmental Labor Office, to request a response to the different notes they sent to that state institution. The group wants their salaries and social benefits to be honored.
Juan Carlos Alarcón, spokesman for the former workers, stated that They sent several notes and have not had a responsethat they would not even have received them if it were not for the fact that their lawyer was an official in that department.
The uncertainty is great for more than 3 thousand people who were left without their source of employment since the bank was intervened. At the beginning there were 4,600, but some successfully terminated their employment and obtained their liquidation; others are immovable people, generally due to some disability.
Everything was ready for the workers to receive a salary on May 29, however, The death of former inspector Carlos Colodro changed everything.
With the new official in charge of this process, Gonzalo Araoz, mistrust grows. Alarcón points out that the official gives different versions to workers from La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, about the luck they will have, so that the perception about Araoz is that it is not a serious person or from someone “who can be trusted”.
Next Monday the 19th, no later than Tuesday the 20th, the controller promised to present a payment plan for wages and benefits for former workers. If this is not fulfilled, they enlist new pressure measures, the marches will return and hunger strikes and blockades are not ruled out, which will be defined by a commission responsible for these issues,
“We are not claiming anything that does not correspond to us by law,” said Alarcón.
