The union of Luz y Fuerza de Mar del Plata expresses its deepest concern at the announcement of the dismissal of more than 150 workers of the company INTESAR SA from Balcarce’s power plant.
The Secretary of Energy of the Nation, Javier Iguacel, announced the cessation of works at the high voltage power line that was being installed between the towns of Bahía Blanca and Vivoratá, to integrate this region into the Sistema Interconectado Nacional (SIN).
Given this interruption in the investment, the company Integración Eléctrica Sur Argentina (INTESAR), decided to dismiss more than 150 workers, most of them from the town of Balcarce. The firm had about 270 employees working on the site to connect the two transformer stations and more than 70 percent of the total was already built.
This decision constitutes another example of the current national government’s austerity policies which not only generate inflation and loss of purchasing power and workers’ rights, but also result in dismissals at all levels of the national industry, commerce, and services. Since the current neoliberal government needed to comply with the International Monetary Fund by passing a budget that implied a greater adjustment and the reduction of investment in infrastructure, the authorities decided to suspend this development which is as important as necessary.
The project was long claimed by our Union since 1999, when we demanded the repowering of the Central 9 de Julio de Mar del Plata (which we achieved in 2017) and the works to integrate the region into the SIN.
The interruption not only generates these 150 laid-off workers, with all the anguish and difficulties it means to their families. This is also a fatal blow to the realization of an indispensable work for the Southeast region of the province of Buenos Aires, which has more than 1.5 million inhabitants not yet connected to the national electricity grid.
From Luz y Fuerza de Mar del Plata we demand the authorities an urgent rectification of this measure, the continuity of the works and the corresponding biddings in order to develop an energy infrastructure that guarantees the electric service and improves the people’s quality of life.
ENOUGH OF AUSTERITY, ENOUGH OF DISMISSALS! NO TO THE IMF!
UNION OF LUZ Y FUERZA DE MAR DEL PLATA
