The Ecuadorian trade union movement has demanded more social investment in the coming years. Author: Trade
QUITO, 14 March. — FUT President Marcela Arellano announced new marches for this Wednesday amid growing criticism of the executive branch from various sections of Ecuadorian society.
“We are protesting precisely because we are currently in a state of defenselessness,” Arellano said on Tuesday, dismissing the fact that the protests are causing destabilization, as other opposition voices assure, Telesur reported.
According to the trade union leader, it is the government of Guillermo Lasso that generates the most instability due to the lack of social investment, which puts the burden of the economic, political and security crisis in Ecuador on the public.
Arellano stressed that “we assumed a budget was needed for education, health care, security,” and criticized the executive’s stated intentions to militarize the streets to combat violence, while warning that police routinely suppress mobilizations.
Together with members of the Ecuadorian University Student Federation, the workers will demonstrate in defense of social security, employment, health care and education, assure that the mobilization will be peaceful, and demand that President Lasso “take a step aside.” and hand over power, Telesur said.
The March 8 demonstrations were calm and were supplemented by announcements of early elections and the resignation of the president, who has the worst popularity among the population.
The ineffectiveness of his leadership in combating such evils as social violence and the rise in delinquency and organized crime, as well as the revulsion that this causes, was manifested in the rejection of his proposed constitutional reform through a referendum at the beginning of February, and this failed.
Later, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Konaye) broke off negotiations it had been having with the government since the previous year and joined Lasso’s resignation request, which is being extended.
Source: Juventud Rebelde