Buenos Aires, February 10 (NA) – The Adjunct Secretary of the CGT, Andrés Rodríguez (UPCN), affirmed this Tuesday that the labor reform project to be debated tomorrow in the Senate was elaborated by the Government “with an anti-union criterion” and not to “generate employment.” Ahead of the mobilization called for Wednesday by the union center in front of the Congress, Rodríguez said that the CGT aims to “neutralize” through modifications to the points of the project that harm workers and unions. According to what the Argentine News Agency could confirm, the protest called by the CGT will formally begin at 2:30 PM in the Plaza del Congress, although the main union columns will begin to gather from noon in the vicinity of the parliament. “We are facing a project that attacks the structure of the unions trying to cause a defunding of the labor organizations, and that also violates many workers' rights,” said the union leader in statements to Splendid AM 990. He also stated that the labor reform is not intended to “create jobs,” and warned that with the policies of this government “informality and unemployment are growing; it is not that there has been an improvement, because many SMEs that generate a lot of manpower are closing.” “The only way to create employment is with investment, from abroad or local, that bets on productive activities and generates development; that is the only way to create employment, not violating rights as this supposed modernization does,” he emphasized. The head of the state UPCN union lamented that when the CGT was summoned to participate in the Council of May “we were not included in any proposal and we had no weight,” and criticized that “the ruling party proceeds with great unilateralism.” “We agree that the industry of lawsuits should end, but it will not be achieved with this law that has very mixed issues and is totally anti-union,” he added. The union leader affirmed: “Today people are losing purchasing power and the economy functions at 70% with internal consumption, so with these wages the economy is very harmed.”
