President Luis Lacalle Pou referred this Tuesday to the proposal of the PIT-CNT to reduce the working day from 44 to 40 hours weekly in Uruguay. Although he said that it does not seem “adequate nor practicable” He was willing to discuss it.
“I would have no problem discussing it”acknowledged the president in an interview with Argentine journalist Luis Majul on radio The Observer. Of course, he maintained that he would discuss this initiative as long as three fundamental points are considered: the Workloadthe productivity and the salary.
The PIT-CNT had claimed hours before, within the framework of the Labor Day, the implementation of the reduced work week. “Thinking of a strict reduction in the workload does not seem appropriate or practicable to me,” said Lacalle Pou.
He also stated that “depends on the branches of work” and considered that certain specific items should be taken into account. In this sense, he exemplified dairy farms, where the work cycles are more “rigid” than in other areas and pointed out that there it can be “very difficult” to choose how long “more or less” you can work.
The ex-president, Jose Mujicaassured this Monday at a press conference that “You have to fight for a 6-hour (working) day” and “is sung“that in the future there will be a decrease in the workload of Uruguayans
The proposal to reduce the working day of the PIT-CNT
This Monday, within the framework of the mobilizations for Labor Day, the labor union raised the banner of reducing the number of working hours per week, from 44 to 40, with the purpose of “Improve Life Quality” from the workers.
The president of the PIT-CNT, Marcelo Abdalaindicated that the law that regulates the schedule is currently from the second government of the president Jose Batlle y Ordonez (1903-1907 and 1911-1915) and should be modified by all the technological and labor changes that have occurred since then.
“All the changes that have taken place from the technological point of view, from the point of view of the organization of work, of productivity improvement they give so that already entered the 21st century we can have processes of reduction of the working day no salary reduction“, said.
Thus, he added: “For us it is absolutely pertinent not only to see it at the level of each branch of activity in collective bargaining in the Wage Councils, but also to promote, as Chile has been doing, for example, with the 40-hour week, a law better regulate the working day”, he pointed out.
After the act of the PIT-CNT, the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Paul Mieres, expressed himself in the same sense as the President now. “Today it is not on the table“, he pointed out, although “in collective negotiations there may be sectors that can advance in that.”
Source: Ambito
