This Monday, April 18, the President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, announced that the government decided to grant an additional increase of 3% to liabilities and 2% to public sector workers as of July, and suggest the advancement of the adjustment for inflation in those 88 collective bargaining tables of the private sector in which there was no agreement, with the aim of alleviating the loss of purchasing power due to the increase in prices.
Given this, the socialist senator Daniel Olesker recalled that a month ago he stated that the government should decree an increase in public sector salaries and pensions in the month of July and convene Salary Councils to apply corrections for inflation. “At that time its validity was questioned, but reality is stronger than theory.”
Olesker remarked: “Today the government that questioned it decrees it. It is an acknowledgment that the loss was very great and that, as we said, without a change in salary policy there is no possible solution”.
The socialist legislator indicated that “it is also clear that what has already been lost due to soaring inflation cannot be recovered. Whether or not the increase will be enough to stop losing wages, reality will tell.”
robin hood backwards
For his part, the socialist deputy Gonzalo Civila said that “the government, with the announcements, recognizes what its sector has been supporting. “With its policy of systematically falling wages, there is no price policy that can work for workers and retirees. Not even remotely. They observe that this also has a political cost.”
“Although it cannot be said that adjustments of this magnitude will prevent a new loss in real wages this year and we do not know how far the government is willing to go to prevent this from happening, the decision was essential,” the Socialist parliamentarian remarked.
Civila reiterated that the political definition of adjusting wages below inflation has been causing a loss in recent years that will not be recovered. “This is negatively affecting the living conditions of the vast majority of the population.”
He added that in a context of economic growth, the wage policy applied has been “an instrument for transferring income from employees and retirees to capital. ‘Robin Hood’ backwards. While the working class pays for the crisis, the concentrated sectors increase their profits”.
“We hope to know in these days a global strategy on prices that goes beyond isolated and partial measures and that is articulated with a different salary policy sustained over time. We will continue denouncing the pro ‘golden mesh’ decisions that impoverish the majority”, Civila sentenced.
