You Heard It on “No Te Duermas”
In the radio program, Hugo Polliola, representative of CICOP (The Union of Health Professionals in Buenos Aires Province), spoke about the need for a new approach to wages and collective bargaining agreements.
Tomás Modini
@ModiniTomas
At the beginning of the interview on No Te Duermas, Hugo Polliola shared: “Initially, CICOP in La Matanza has been around for almost two years and is a municipal section. In recent years, we’ve started to open sections in municipalities. Over 50 municipalities now have CICOP as an option to defend municipal workers. In our case, we’re focused on health workers, and right now, we’re seeing cuts in the number of professionals and technicians.”
“If they join us, they can keep the municipal union and the professional association the municipality already has; it’s not exclusive to have more than one union representation. Being originally from the provincial level, today we also operate at the municipal level, and when we set up in the municipality, in our case, we find ourselves facing a significant salary delay compared to the province,” he explained further.
He also stated that, “A few years ago, La Matanza was ahead of the province in terms of salaries, and neighboring municipalities were also ahead,” but now, “we are very behind in salaries and other rights that CICOP has gained in the province.”
CICOP’s Demands
Regarding their ongoing struggle, he detailed: “Tomorrow (today) we have a demonstration in San Justo Square, which will be held simultaneously with all the municipalities where we have a presence. It will take place on November 7th and 8th, coinciding with Municipal Workers’ Day. Some municipalities interrupt work on the day, while others observe it on the municipal day.”
“These will be days of struggle in which we will highlight common issues we still need to address in the municipalities, and specific issues for some municipalities. For instance, Lomas de Zamora offers annual stress leave, which is 12 extra days on top of regular vacation time, and in our case, we are still fighting for this and may end the year with this victory,” he added.
He also pointed out that, “Among our demands for tomorrow are stress leave, salary recovery first, and then collective bargaining negotiations.”
The Salary Backlog
In line with this, he insisted: “La Matanza is very behind, not only in terms of salaries but also in the structure of the paycheck. For example, a doctor ends up taking home around $1,000,000, while the base salary is $110,000. Then there’s the issue of attendance bonuses, non-remunerative bonuses, which affect the pensions of our retired colleagues, and for those of us close to retirement, the pension prospects look very poor because the pension fund is in bad shape.”
“Also, it is unacceptable to have 70% of the salary in ‘black wages’ for public employees. And having many years of service, in my case, 26 years. That is how my salary is structured,” he stressed.
He also mentioned that “In addition to the base salary, there are numerous decrees, and today, six or seven decrees are summarized in a line and a half, through which we receive additional payments, some of which are considered remunerative. There are bonuses that are remunerative but not everyone receives them. The attendance bonus, for example, is nearly 30%, meaning a third of the worker’s salary is non-remunerative.”
“We are asking for salary adjustments, starting with a salary recovery, because today, with a salary of $450,000, it’s impossible to talk about a good collective bargaining agreement with the current inflation rate. Maybe we’ll get a 10% increase, but that’s not much either,” he concluded.
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