This Tuesday, President Luis Lacalle Pou stated that he would have “no problem” in discussing a possible reduction in the duration of the working day, as suggested by the PIT-CNT on May 1. However, he emphasized that this discussion should take into account three conditions that he understands to be necessary.
“It does not seem appropriate or practical to think of a strict reduction in working hours,” said the president when asked about the issue by the Argentine journalist Luis Majul on the radio. The Observer 107.9 from Buenos Aires. Lacalle Pou mentioned that the duration of the working day should be necessarily linked to productivity and the salary received by the worker.
“If I say: ‘I work less, I have less productivity and I earn the same,’ that is not logical,” the president stated. “Now, if I say: ‘I work less, I am more productive and I earn the same or more,’ that is logical,” continued the libertarian president.
Lacalle Pou added that these three variables are the ones that must be studied together when analyzing the proposal, which should also consider in which sector of activity it could be applied. The president considered it very difficult that in the agricultural sector, for example in a dairy, you can choose how long you can work more or less. “There are certain very specific and sometimes very rigid cycles,” he said.
On the other hand, the president of the PIT-CNT, Marcelo Abdala, recently proposed the reduction of working hours without affecting salary, which has been successfully implemented in Fábricas Nacionales de Cerveza in Uruguay during the last fifteen years. Abdala pointed out that this should be the “new flag” of the trade union center.
Consulted by El País, the Minister of Labor, Pablo Mieres, indicated that this matter “is not on the table” of the portfolio he directs at the moment. However, he considered that the reduction should be “tied to the increase in productivity”, but “it can never be at a general level because the realities of the sectors of activity are very different”. Given the “vertiginous changes at the technological level that impact the labor market,” this issue should be discussed in the future, according to the minister.
