A total of 36 workers from the national government’s Labor Opportunity Plan, who work in the Municipality of Nueva Palmira carrying out cleaning tasks throughout the city, could be left without work next Wednesday, December 28 at the end of the contract.
Today there are a total of 36 in the municipality of Palmyra, when one of them has now resigned after getting another job and a young woman who is on maternity leave. They are divided into two fortnights, half of them work the first twelve working days of the month, and the rest in the second fortnight, from Monday to Saturday, from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., and for this they receive a monthly salary of 10,600 liquid pesos. Money that “is very helpful to us and we don’t know if we are going to continue counting it,” the workers told EL ECO with concern.
For this reason, they delivered letters with their request to the mayor Agustín Callero, to the president of the Departmental Board, Fredys Antúnez, to the president of the Congress of Mayors Guillermo López, to the coordinator of the decentralization and cohesion area of the Office of Planning and Budget (OPP ) of the Presidency of the Republic, María de Lima, and the nationalist deputy Mario Colman.
In it they demand continuity of employment.
“Until the 28th we are biting our nails”
Workers of the “solidarity wages”, as they are commonly known, contacted EL ECO to make their situation public.
Natalia Pons, María Esther Pólvora and Estefani Manzanares, representing the group of day laborers, told EL ECO that, although their initial contract was from “July 16 to October”, then “we were extended two more months until the 28 of December, and now we have the uncertainty if when the date arrives we are going to have another extension, if we will continue or if our hiring ends”.
“We would like an extension of an initial contract that ensures us from six months to one more year of work, and in the future to be able to stay, because we are heads of families and we need this job,” they emphasized.
Until the 28th “we are biting our nails, because we don’t know if we continue or if we are out of work” precisely on a date that should be more of a celebration because it is the end of the year, and not be “worried about what will happen at the same time as depending on of this salary for our homes.”
The mayor “told us that we are essential because they do not have staff to do the tasks that we do, but it does not depend on him.” If the contract ends, the Municipality would be greatly affected by having “few staff in the corralón, and there are those who are about to retire, so there would be even fewer.”
In the meantime, “we are waiting for a response from the authorities to our letters and that they give us the respite that we will have work for at least six more months, and that we are willing to have an evaluation of our work, of our performance, that is good for everyone,” they said.
