The workers of the official banks and the National Housing Agency (ANV), from Artigas, Rivera, Tacuarembó and Cerro Largo, carried out the stoppage of activities last Wednesday, June 29. And this Monday the 4th will be done by those who carry out tasks in Florida, Flores and Durazno. The next departments to stop the activities are Colonia, San José and Soriano (Tuesday 5).
The measure is due to the scant progress in the negotiations of a new agreement for the sector, explained the Press and Propaganda Secretary, María Estoup. The main difficulty encountered lies in the calculation made by the Government on the salary recovery for 2020, based on the average salary index (IMS) and not on the average consumer price index (CPI), traditionally applied in previous adjustments. This change produced a salary delay “divorced from the rest of the prices” that the Executive Power refuses to recognize. For this reason, Estoup pointed out that “the salary adjustment was reduced.”
According to the Portal of Aebu, and according to what was stated by the leader, the conflict focuses on the consequences of the application of this new parameter. To understand the situation, “you have to see how the salary now compares with the increase in the average salary index”, because with the change in policy, “the issue is that they are given a smaller wage loss difference than us” .
Regarding the claim to fill 100% of the vacancies in state banks, Estoup alluded to a directive from the Office of Planning and Budget (OPP) that limits the replacement of officials to one in three who have retired. In this regard, he argued that this limitation “is detrimental to public services and State companies”, deteriorates the capacity of the latter to compete with private companies, and in some cases endangers the continuity of the work of some agencies of the interior.
The strikes in each of the affected localities allow the holding of assemblies in the workplace with the participation of regular directors. In this regard, the president of the Council of the Official Financial Sector, Marcelo Ronchi, pointed out that the decision to stop at 4:00 p.m. was made for the purpose of “reaching the public with flyers and talking with people to reverse the image that is has from the banks, which are serving poorly or slowly, and [explicar] why we are losing customers in some of them due to lack of staff”.
“As we advance in the negotiations, we are defining the strategy of the union movement to be able to reach the objectives. The negotiations are not closed; We are in a mobilization plan to move forward, and as we see how this is going, we will see what the most appropriate measures are,” said Estoup. Around the end of the first fortnight of the month, strikes will take place in Canelones (Monday 11) and Montevideo (Tuesday 12).
