The Municipal Velodrome was dyed red on Thursday afternoon. The Single National Union of Construction and Annexes (Sunca), filled that place in Montevideo with workers, to define its platform for the new round of Salary Councils.
The tripartite negotiations between businessmen, workers and representatives of the Executive Power will begin this Friday, and They will have as a backdrop the union proposal to close an agreement whose formula ensures the growth of real wages in the coming years. That will be one of the main demands that Sunca will place on the table.
In the general assembly it was argued that if the “economy grows”, this has to be reflected in the salary guideline, so that “part of that profit” reaches “the pockets” of the workers.
“Slitting our throats unemployed”
The other point that the union highlighted is the refusal to “lose benefits” already achieved in previous negotiation rounds. “What we won on the field we are not willing to lose in the league,” said the secretary of conflicts, Javier Díaz.
Parliament this week approved a series of changes to the Collective Bargaining Law. Among them is the elimination of the ultraactivity of the agreements. The general secretary of Sunca, Daniel Diverio, considered that for the union “There is no drama” because it “bars and negotiates”, but other smaller unions “have a hard time doing it”. He added that the modifications promoted by the Executive Power made them “concerned by the complaints of the employers in the International Labor Organization (ILO).”
Ines Guimaraens
In his speeches, Diverio maintained that as he had announced at the beginning of 2020, the new government “came with the objective of slitting the throats of the unemployed” to the workersand that the measures ordered since his inauguration “all point to that place.”
He immediately listed the bridge agreement in force between mid-2020 and 2021 in the pandemic, where most of the workers “lost wages”, and the law of Urgent Consideration (LUC).
He also put changes in education on his list, which he said are “to prevent the children of workers from having the same conditions to be trained and acquire knowledge”; Yet the social security reform that he defined as “a fiscal adjustment” that only “benefits” the Afap.
To this he added the obligation by law for unions to “have legal status,” which, according to what he said, “tries” that those who do not have it “stay on the side of the road and have no representation” in collective bargaining.
“But the unity of the union movement is not broken by a decree or a law, because it was built with struggle in the streets,” Diverio harangued, while the noise of bugles was heard and the red and Uruguayan flags were waving.
Ending with incidents and music by Los Redondos
After reading the general report, the president of Sunca, Richard Camejo, took the floor. Among other things, The leader said that “a tie is no longer enough” and that he will leave for the objective of real salary growth, the magnitude of which will be determined by the negotiations.
At the end of his oratory, the claim platform that had emerged from the resolutions of the last national congress held in February was put to consideration. After the vote by show of hands, the majority supported the proposal and the applause fell from the rostrum, while part of the public and even leaders were already leaving.
At that moment, the leader of Sunca Maldonado, Michael Pistone, burst onto the stage and shouted for the list of speakers to be opened. The trade unionist stated that “the Saceem company violates” the departmental per diem decree, and that although in the assembly “it was said that they will fight for everything” later it is not done.
Ines Guimaraens
While Pistone demanded that the motion of the Maldonado plenaryfor a representative of that department to participate in the delegation when the issue of travel expenses is discussed in the Salary Councils, whistles began from some sectors of the Velodrome. “Whoever is in favor, comrades, raise your hand,” Pistone yelled amid boos and a climate of disorder.
From the left end of the platform, where there was a majority of Maldonado workers, Several assembly members entered the stage. The tumult that was generated forced the assembly to be suspended for several minutes, while the shoving took place under the podium.
During that obligatory impasse, the song began to sound on the speakers of the Velodrome lost toys of the Redons. The music was mixed with the rhythm of a batucada that had arrived early to animate the assembly.
Several minutes later, and with the majority of the assembly members back in the stands, two proposals were read, and a vote was taken again. In the end, the platform led by the National Executive Committee was approved, and the motion presented by Maldonado workers was set aside.
The union internal
The Agustín Pedroza current has the majority of the representatives that make up the Sunca National Board of Directors, identified with the Communist Party. That primacy does not occur in Maldonado, where the union has as a reference Pistone, a man of the current, Wilson ‘Pililo’ Correa (list 14,411), and that he obtained two positions in the direction after the last election.
