A sudden strike by the Unter altered the Rio Negro political agenda, focused until Thursday on the effects of the Bases Law within the province.
The teaching union avoided the bureaucracy and uncertainty of its congresses, calling the Plenary of General Secretaries to draw up an express plan of struggle, which It surprised both the Government and the families with children in the almost 800 schools of the public system.
Faced with this storm with no forecast, the Executive was far from creativity and reacted with classic tools: public reproaches and promise of sanctions.
These reprisals would come through administrative means – for not having notified the measures within the legal deadlines – and in the salary receipts, without settling the last increase offered and discounting the days not worked.
It would be a novelty if the Weretilneck administration withheld sums from teachers, because the five previous strikes that Unter carried out this year, due to salary demands or adhering to national Ctera protests, had no economic consequences, as Unter leaders confirmed on Friday.
And it would be another novelty within the Juntos Somos Río Negro governments for an administrative cycle to be completed due to the apparent illegal action of the teaching union.
The previous administration, headed by Arabela Carreras, discounted five days of unemployment, but it liquefied the rest of the 2023 strikes with the extension of one week of the school year and the suspension of three institutional days. And more important than that, he never specified the supposed million-dollar fine for Unter for not complying with the mandatory conciliation dictated by Labor in the pre-election conflict.
So, in the cost/benefit analysis that always precedes a fighting plan, recent history plays in favor of the union and surely that weighed when deciding to escalate the conflict.
Now, this path adopted also caught other unions off guard and surely now it will cost more to present the State Union Front as a solid nucleusbecause within that space there are those who believe that Unter is not reading the national scenario correctly, where Rio Negro public workers are better off than their peers from other provinces.
The Base Law and the “vote for a roundabout”
Whether these interpretations are correct or not, the concrete thing is that The crisis over state salaries vanished the feeling of tranquility that appeared in the official environment after the approval of the Base Law and the Fiscal Package in the Senate.
Mónica Silva’s vote was much more than an exchange for a roundabout and the Justicialist opposition will have to do more than post with dubious irony if it intends to insist on demonstrating that there are no benefits for the province from the new scenario.
Weretilneck did not appear in photos with the Chief of Staff, Guillermo Francos, like other provincial leaders, but he negotiated works and resources with the same intensity and finally opened communication channels with the Casa Rosada.
After six hard months without dialogue or expectations, having unlocked the mileista rigidity offers a less dark horizon for the provincial governments that never seriously explored the paths of development without high dependence on the Nation.
In any case, the greater predisposition to consensus on the part of the Milei team will not prevent the new challenge for the Rio Negro ruling partywhich will add management responsibilities in areas of strong exposure, such as the administration of routes and the intended train service in the Alto Valle.
At the end of its first semester, Weretilneck has already begun the review to determine who are the “officials who work” and who do not measure up for the new time.
As with the Unter, The ruling party will soon see if there is a new government style, less patient than in previous versions.
Some of that was already seen this week, when it was learned that the president himself is signing complaints for alleged fraudulent certificates in the State, a task that other people can undoubtedly fulfill.
