MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayan unions call for general strike next month

Lacalle's popularity is slowly waning

Uruguay's labor unions gathered under the PIT-CNT Thursday, announced a general strike with a march towards the Executive Tower and the Legislative Palace between 9 am and 1 pm.

They will stage a protest amid parliamentary budget discussions for next year against the Government of President Luis Lacalle Pou, who has a 46% approval rating, according to a survey released Thursday.

Early in May, the PIT-CNT had confirmed it was weighing the possibility of a strike. The unions' deployment will include a gathering at the Executive Tower doorsteps to march from there to the Legislative Palace, PIT-CNT's Elbia Pereira explained.

“Uruguayan workers are suffering a conflict as a result of the loss of wages, the precariousness of work, factory closures and, in addition, the constant increase in tariffs and prices of the basic food basket: dearness,” said PIT-CNT on social media.

“In these situations, our response will always be unity, solidarity, and struggle. We support and call for the mobilizations that the unions will carry out and that will converge in a Partial General Strike next June 7 in defense of quality work and wages,” the labor grouping went on.

Former PIT-CNT president and current opposition coalition Frente Amplio's Fernando Pereira Kosec told Telemundo that the workers' demands will focus on “the defense of labor, for a fair and solidary social security, in defense of public education and collective bargaining, and also of public enterprises.”

This general strike comes in addition to measures already announced: The education unions will strike June 15 with a march to the Executive Tower. Regarding this particular measure, President Lacalle Pou had said that “it is a strike just in case, like gymnastics.”

”I am not saying that money is not needed, I understand that the claim of the National Administration of Public Education (ANEP) and the Ministry of Education and Culture for the educational reform is fair,“ Lacalle had also pointed out.

Construction workers grouped under SUNCA will also stage a strike June 29

Pereira also said that Lacalle's ”Zero Accountability“ approach gave him ”chills“ given the ”distressing“ situation of part of the Uruguayan population, who still approved of Lacalle's administration, although 14% considered it ”very good“ and 32% just ”good“.

The Opción Consultores study also said Lacalle has a 17-point positive approval rating, which nonetheless entailed a 5-point drop in approval and a 7-point increase in disapproval after 21 months in office, 45% through the 2020-2025 mandate.

The report also pointed out that 3 out of 10 Uruguayans rated the Lacalle administration unfavorably, including 15% who found it ”bad“ and another 14% who said it was ”very bad,“ while 22% rated the government's work as ”neither good nor bad.”