The mayor of Flores, and president of the Congress of Mayors, Fernando Echeverría will meet today Tuesday with the deputy director of the Office of Planning and Budget, Benjamín Irazabal, to together receive a letter or formal proposal from the people who on this day decided to start a hunger strike due to the lack of answers due to the extension of solidarity wages.
Echeverría spoke with Diario La R, and explained that “they have committed to working with the government to make a new edition of the solidarity newspapers,” adding that “they are not encouraged to put a date at the beginning of that new edition.” He said that each mayor will be asked for an evaluation, then it is analyzed in the Congress of Mayors and later they meet with the Executive Power, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Labor and the OPP for the start of phase 3. The hierarch said that The next meeting of the Congress of Mayors is in February, but given the presence of this issue, it does not rule out a session to be held in this month of January.
On strike
“There are five of us on strike but in reality we are 10,000.” The phrase belongs to Karina Camacho, one of the five people who will begin a hunger strike this Tuesday from 7:00 p.m. in front of the doors of the Torre Ejecutiva building, given what they consider the lack of responses from the government in the renewal of solidarity wages, which ended their last extension in the December 2022 edition.
Camacho explained yesterday to Diario La R that the decision to start a hunger strike was because “the government let go of our hand,” since “it promised us one thing and it was another.” “We tried to reach the government and there was no response, and after exhausting all resources we said that the only thing left for us is to go on strike.” He affirmed that before taking the measure there was a consensus, since the resolution was discussed with people who are going through the situation in all the departments of the country. “It’s the last way we found to get an answer,” he said.
It is worth remembering that the Congress of Mayors is analyzing the idea of requesting the Executive Branch to repeat the solidarity wages this year but from May to November a 2023 edition, commented the group’s spokesperson.
Asked about how the negotiations between the Executive Branch and the Congress of Mayors for the extension of solidarity wages were going, she said that according to the information that the group of people gathered for the cause has, the issue is currently “in nothing ”. “What if it was signed and decreed that from May 2023 there will be a new call. But we need solutions now. How do people eat from here until May? The representative of the group emphasized the difficulty for thousands of people throughout the country to obtain a secure and stable job in a month like January.
“What about those who want and need to work but can’t read or write? What do they eat? Situations of people like that I saw and lived through. I had to see misery in people that I had never seen. I happened to see people entering a dump truck looking for a piece of bread or something to eat. And nobody sees that? Misery is there, and we, those of us who were in the solidarity wages, are the open newspaper so that the whole of Uruguay, or whoever wants to, really finds out. Here the misery is covered. And then they still come to tell us that the violence has decreased,” Camacho told Diario La R.
He added that given the uncertainty and lack of clear answers from the President of the Republic and the mayors, if they are removed from the place they occupy in front of the Executive Tower, they will return the next day. And if they are removed again, they will return again. “The president at some point is going to have to be present, because as president, it is in the Constitution of the Republic that he has to protect us and he has to give us guarantees. And here the only thing he did was make us trust him, and then he did not let go of his hand. He clarified that Lacalle Pou, at the request, “never said yes, but he never said no, and that bothers us,”
He pointed out that there are five people, there are three women and two men, all adults and with children. They have already spoken with the president of the Uruguayan Medical Union (SMU), Zaida Arteta, who guaranteed them that when it is convenient, and according to the time that the strike elapses, in the tent where the five people will live, in principle for an indeterminate time. She also added that the idea is to start the strike with the five of them and finish it all together.
Asked if they receive a response from the Executive Branch but not directly from President Lacalle Pou, she said that if another hierarch comes, he will be recognized, but it will not be the same if another comes and not the president. “What we want is to talk to the president. And in the event that Álvaro Delgado comes, the media must be there. And there the commitment is the commitment”. Camacho also explained that before arriving on the hunger strike, signed letters were taken to the Executive Tower, and delivered to the deputy secretary of the Presidency.
Given this action, he commented that the letters sent were answered. On the first occasion, when the first extension was requested, they were told that the extension was going to take place, which finally happened. The last letter was presented after Christmas and before New Years. The same was answered, and expressed that there would be good news, which finally did not arrive.
Regarding whether in recent months they had contact with a mayor of a department or with the head of the Congress of Mayors, he said that the only community chief who gave them an answer was Andrés Lima, from Salto. Camacho acknowledged that he was one of the mayors who carried out the negotiations for the renewal, within the congress. He said that Andrés Lima, on this issue, “is trying to give them a hand at this time.” When Camacho was asked if they had not communicated with Fernando Echeverría (mayor of Flores and president of the Congress of Mayors) through Lima, he said no, “because the anger was not with the mayors, but with Lacalle Pou.” .
Regarding the support that the movement has, he said that it has the support of Fancap, the beverage union, the Pit-Cnt and the assistance of the Uruguayan Medical Union (SMU).
The delegate said that of the 10,000 people seeking access to solidarity wages, some 2,700 are from Montevideo, and stressed the importance of the money that some people received for the tasks they performed in solidarity wages. “There were colleagues who told me that for them, who had nothing, they received those $10,600 as US$10,600 dollars,” she commented, adding the following sentence: “with the wages I was in neighborhoods like Cadorna and Tres Ombúes . Misery no one told me. I saw her”.
