Layoffs in State-Run Businesses Continue in Argentina

05 de enero de 2016, 17:11Buenos Aires, Jan 5 (Prensa Latina) The layoffs of legislative workers were followed today by others in the Kirchner Cultural Center and the dissolved Federal Authority for Audiovisual Communication Services (Afsca), reported union sources and representatives of the affected employees.

The start of 2016 is being very troubled to workers of state-run businesses, as their fate as workers is uncertain, thus keeping unions on alert, said El Destape website.

General Secretary of the Association of State Workers (ATE) in this capital, Daniel Catalano, lamented that "there is a persecution against civil servants that makes no sense."

From ATE, which is on the alert and has been on state of mobilization in the wake of the inauguration of President Mauricio Macri, they denounced that nine delegates of the union were sacked in Afsca, which was transferred under the control of the National Communication Department (Enacom).

According to Catalano, the same thing is happening in other state-run offices with senior workers, people who had been working there even before the past government.

There are people in the Cabinet and the Presidency of the Nation "with five, six and even 10 years of work who have been laid off for alleged political activity," said Catalano.

"We can't believe the level of institutional violence this is being taken to," he said in remarks to Radio 10 and El Destape website.

The former spokesman for Afsca, Fernando Torrillate, wrote on Twitter that police and security officers are the ones who notify those who have been laid off.

Vice President Gabriela Michetti laid off by decree 2,034 workers of the Senate, and other congressional employees are also expected to join the ranks of the unemployed in the Chamber of Deputies.

"This is a form of political persecution," said prestigious investigative journalist and civil rights activist Stella Calloni.

She said that during the former government there were workers from other political leanings who were permanent members of the staffs and contracted workers that were not laid off for thinking differently; "that's why what is happening is very worrying."

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