So we elaborated a proposal that arose from reality itself, a contribution to the unity of the national and popular field; we never did it to divide, always for unity.
I want to explain what we are talking about when we talk about popular economy, because we wanted to have a union. I am not an intellectual, that is why I explain it with examples.
A few days ago I went to the municipality of Pilar, since some colleagues invited me, because a political-trade union training center was being inaugurated. I like to listen more than talk, but at one point they asked me for an opinion and I told them: ‘What they did during the pandemic in the clubs, in the community, cultural centers, in the dining rooms, picnic areas and popular pots, was a patriotic deed, deaths were avoided, life was guaranteed. That is love and mercy with our People”.
That’s what they did, I say them because the vast majority are women, and all of us from the Popular Movements did it.
It seems to me that the problem of inflation, economic concentration, this whole process that could never be stopped, has to invite us to think that part of food production should be in the hands of popular movements.
I tell you that that day in Pilar, one of the compañeras approached me and invited me to see the garden they made in her neighborhood. At that time I went to see the orchard, which is no more than four or five pieces of land, in a very difficult area to plant potatoes and sweet potatoes, since they generally do not grow there, but they managed to produce, through loving work, potatoes and sweet potato for our people to eat.
So there is nothing more to explain, they are already doing it. They are already solving the problem, the most humble workers. That is why I implore all those who do not know our People, to come to the neighborhoods, to see how the Homeland is being built.
We have to keep in mind that in December 2015, with the victory of Mauricio MacriFor the first time in history, a neoliberal globalization project reached the government through votes. There all the popular movements began to get together.
Social movements launched the UTEP in Ferro.jpg
CTEP Press
Some criticized us, and still do, because we dialogue with the macrismo. But we are a union that represents workers who do not have a visible boss, so who are we going to talk to to fight for labor rights for our workers.
At that moment they arrested miracle room, so we spent 20 days camping in Plaza de Mayo and Milagro is still imprisoned. It also happens in the neighborhoods, for example in Moreno, where Cecilia and other compañeras are on trial and they want to put them in jail. It is a shame.
We fight like this because we have love and mercy, even with our enemies. Although they are discrediting our compañeros and compañeras, as is the case with Miguel GomezSecretary of Family, Peasant and Indigenous Agriculture, who was denounced by the government of Jujuy for giving possession certificates to families who have lived and produced food in those territories for several decades.
It is in unity against neoliberalism that we mobilized, together with the comrades of the CGT, and achieved the sanction of the Social Emergency Lawwhich implemented the Complementary Social Salary, and created the Popular Economy Council and the Complementary Social Salary and the National Registry of the Popular Economy.
CGT UTEP Daer Castro Navarro.jpg
Courtesy: Guild World
This humble contribution that we make and that power, with its great capacity, hides in order to fragment all our fights as a popular movement. It is not new, since Saul Ubaldiniwho led the workers’ struggle to return democracy to Argentina, was made invisible and that is why we claim him every August 7.
I want to conclude by emphasizing that our task is to continue building the unity of workers so that this can be expressed in political unity.
That is why if the law of Land, Roof and Work they vote in unity and a budget is assigned, food and work will be guaranteed and in this way the country wins. Alberto wins, Cristina wins and the Frente de Todos wins again in 2023.
That is the contribution of the labor and popular movement, the one we made before and the one we continue to make now.
May God bless the workers and may the Virgin take care of all of them.
General Secretary of the Union of Workers of the Popular Economy (UTEP).
Source: Ambito
