Uruguayan senators Oscar Andrade and Guido Manini Rios staged a fire debate on the referendum for the repeal of 135 articles of the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC). This flagship project of the Executive headed by Luis Lacalle Pou generated controversy since its presentation in the neighboring country, as it seeks to modify laws on health, safety, the right to strike, education, state-owned companies and the economy, among others.
For about an hour, Andrade and Manini Ríos exchanged and defended the positions they present in the campaign that will lead to the polls on March 27. The debate, held on Tuesday night in the city of Florida, located about 100 kilometers from Montevideo, had four thematic blocks agreed by the opponents: Public security, living place, Education and Labor Relations.
Manini Riosleader of the right-wing Cabildo Abierto (CA), one of the five parties that make up the governing coalition, insisted during much of the debate that the LUC “protects the most vulnerable” and said that he promotes “urgent” changes for citizenship such as an educational reform and the tougher sentences for criminals. While AndradeFA senator for the Communist Party, argued that the law approved by Parliament in July 2020 “imposes” changes that must be agreed upon by consensus between the social sectors involved and was particularly critical of the limitation of the right to strike.
Security
Manini Riosa retired general and former commander of the Uruguayan Army who entered politics as the founder of the right-wing CA, assured that “one of the main reasons why the people put the coalition in government was the insecurity situation in the country and that there were not going to be big changes if the FA continued.” He added that at that time “it was based on the assumption that the criminal was the victim and society, the victimizer.”
Andrade told him that “Changes in police legislation remove guarantees and individual freedoms”, giving as an example that “forgetting your identity card is not a reason to be arrested.” He also stated: “To protect the police, what you have to do is not lower their salary, protecting the police does not mean that when a police officer arrests you, he does not have a way to notify the prosecutor, that takes away guarantees for citizens.”
Along the same lines, Andrade criticized that the modifications prioritize private property over life. “This allows that for a boy who jumps over a fence for a few blocks (a theft, which is wrong) the answer is homicide”assured the communist senator, warning that “all the specialists” concluded that “the combination of greater force capacity and less accountability” lends itself to “abuses.”
Education
In the block destined for education, Manini Rios I consider that “the vast majority of Uruguayans” believe that “it is in frank decline”. The former soldier remarked that the current “is not that leveling public education, which gave opportunities to the son of the rich and the son of the poor.”
Andrade, on the other hand, blamed the LUC for the intention of eliminating teacher representation in the Codicen (Central Directive Council, the governing body of the National Administration of Public Education of Uruguay). “They pulverize teaching representation and violate autonomywhich is a principle in which the FA has nothing to do”, lamented Andradewith a union past in the Single National Union of Construction and Annexes.
Housing and rentals
In turn, the Frente Amplio senator referred to the issue living place in which he assured that rental regimes around the world have regulations in favor of the tenant, and instead, the LUC “piles up a set of ferocious initiatives, even cruel to families”. He argued that it establishes “absolute discretion in terms” and fines “of up to four and a half months if you take a day to deliver the home.”
For its part, Manini Rios stressed that the law “seeks to encourage part of the empty homes to turn over to the market to lower the prices” of the rentals. “The owner, who is not the stereotype of a rich owner of dozens of properties who wants to maximize his business, is generally someone with limited resources who rents the bottom piece and can make ends meet. serious problems when the tenant does not pay him,” said the CA leader.
Right to strike and labor relations
The fourth block of the debate focused on the changes established by the LUC in labor matters. Andrade He stressed that this is the first time that the right to strike is regulated and without social dialogue, “in a context of falling wages and pensions.” He posited that “It seems that for the government the problem is the worker when it is organized”.
Andrade mentioned that the Institute of Labor Law of the University of the Republic described the new regulations as a “patent of marque for the use of strikebreakers”. The Frente Amplio senator stated that the LUC’s philosophy on this matter is “deeply wrong” and “deteriorates 100 years of labor relations.”
Manini Rios affirmed, in turn, that regulating the right to strike “is a constitutional mandate”, and considered that the LUC “what it does is defend the rights of the weakest”which are “those workers who cannot afford to lose their wages because they are forced to adhere to a measure of force which they may not share.”
After an intense search for support in the midst of a pandemic, the “Yo Firmo” platform, created by progressive groups with the support of the trade union center, the PIT-CNT, and the FA, obtained the necessary signatures for the celebration at the end of 2021. of the query. Last December, and after confirming that the 671,544 signatures required in Uruguay for the call for a referendum were exceeded, the Electoral Court resolved the date of the consultation and the color of the contested ballots: pink for “Yes” , promoted by the opposition, and the light blue for “No”, defended by the government coalition.