Buenos Aires, Feb 12 (NA) — A day after reaching an agreement with the provincial police following their salary protest, the government of Santa Fe began salary negotiations with health unions on Thursday, with another meeting scheduled for next week.
The first bargaining session took place at the Ministry of Labor headquarters in the city of Santa Fe, involving the administration of Maximiliano Pullaro and representatives of the Argentine Medical Association (AMRA) and the Health Professionals' Union (Siprus).
The negotiation table was led by the Minister of Labor, Roald Báscolo, and Guillermo Álvarez, Secretary of Administration of the Ministry of Health, according to a communiqué accessed by the Argentine News Agency (NA).
At the conclusion of the meeting, Álvarez stated that "it was a positive meeting where, as a first step, we listened to the concerns and needs of the professionals in our public health system, whom the minister, Silvia Ciancio, always praises in every place she goes, in every health center, every hospital she visits."
The secretary also detailed that the government has taken note of the demands presented by the unions and is working "to build the best possible proposal within a complex macroeconomic context."
"There is a political decision to improve the conditions for workers. And obviously, we understand that there is a need for workers to improve their salaries in a context that is very difficult not only for Santa Fe but for the entire country," he added.
He specified that during the current administration, 1,042 professionals have been made permanent and 775 have been granted tenure, out of a total of 1,817 workers who had been in this precarious situation since the previous administration and were able to be regularized in the first half of this term.
