State dependencies where 11,000 people were fired in recent days opened on Wednesday with strong police presence at their doors, to stop workers from the Association of State Workers (ATE, by its initials in Spanish) from “entering in a massive and simultaneous way” into the offices.
“The day begins and we see Security Forces are busier intimidating workers than taking care of their responsibilities, such as fighting drug trafficking”, ATE Capital said.
On their social media accounts, the union posted photographs where police presence is seen at the doors of CONICET (Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council), the National Meteorological Service, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Secretariat of Labor and the former Ministry of Science and Technology.
At the doors of the Secretariat of Labor, where 517 people were fired these days, leader of the Argentine Workers’ Central Union (CTA, by its initials in Spanish) Hugo Yasky said that they will bring a lawsuit against the government to the Argentinian Courts and the International Labour Organization.
“The government’s decision aims at destroying the workers’ movement. They are firing people who have worked here for 15 or 20 years. They want to destroy the State, degrade the Ministry of Labor and turn this country in a place where workers are treated as slaves”, Yasky said.
In turn, ATE’s General Secretary Rodolfo Aguiar said that “the one going against the law is the national government, with out of proportion police presence in every public dependency”.
ATE had announced a protest that consisted of “entering in a massive and simultaneous way” into state dependencies where 11,000 people were fired in recent days.
“The President has decided to hit the legal system at its core, and he and his officials could end up in prison because of this”, Aguiar said.
Aguiar added that “causing massive layoffs in state offices violates fundamental rights and that is a statutory offense in our Criminal Code”.
“To infringe the stability of labor guaranteed by Article 14bi in our Constitution dozens of thousands of times simultaneously translates into the elimination of other fundamental rights. And our Criminal Code, in Article 226, establishes punishments of 5 to 15 years of prison to those who block the free exercise of constitutional faculties”, he added.
On Wednesday afternoon, ATE called for a plenary session with over 1,000 delegates, to be held in the union’s Eva Perón lecture hall.
There, a struggle plan will be defined and it is not discarded to call for a general strike and a demonstration this week.
“We need to prove that it is the government that is acting outside the regulations in force and the Constitution”, Aguiar said.