During the afternoon of Tuesday the 25th, once again SRT workers mobilized at the doors of the UNC Superior Council to hold an open assembly and complain to the authorities, after learning about the plan of the UNC Rectorate, headed by John Boretto, which intends to carry out at least 160 layoffs. Union, political, and student organizations mobilized to accompany the workers, rejecting the layoff plan and the emptying of the SRT, defending public media.
As the workers denounce, this plan of the Rectorate and the current Director of the multimedia, Daniel Barraco, is in tune with the Milei government’s adjustment in public education. In this context, far from continuing with the demand for funds for the operation of the universities as expressed in the historic mobilization of April 23, the leadership of the UNC headed by John Boretto joins the adjustment so that the and Workers.
In this context, today it was learned that the provincial labor secretary, headed by Omar Sereno, approved the crisis preventive measure that enables the rectorate to advance the layoff plan. These are decisive moments for the continuity of the SRT. Its workers have been doing everything to defend the multimedia of the UNC, with a great track record and history in our province.
To toughen the fight, union leaders must rise to the challenge. The inter-union organization that brings together unions representing press workers, technicians, operators, and cameramen is important to confront the attack as a collective, but it can go further. The unions that have a strategic weight due to the number of members as well as the resources they control and the spaces they are part of, must assume all their responsibility.
The presence of the organic bodies of unions such as SATSAID is necessary in accompanying the actions, but in their hands there are other tools that can make the conflict take a leap. The union is represented in two branches of communication: on the one hand, the open television channels in which the SRT are found (as well as other TV production companies and channels such as Telefe and Canal 12) and on the other hand, the closed circuit channel. television, which brings together hundreds of satellite television workers and internet providers. They bring together a very important sector of workers from companies such as Telecom, Directv or Supercanal. It is also a union that has the attached secretariat in the CGT Córdoba.
A provincial strike of both branches that it represents, with continuity in a fight plan with SATSAID at the head, can cause the conflict to affect other companies and make it difficult for the Rectorate to empty and scrap the SRT. A measure that also sets the stage for companies and TV producers that have been adjusting workers with increasingly lower parities. Workers cannot be the adjustment variable.
Today more than ever, union leaders have to be up to the task of defending jobs, seeking unity and solidarity starting with the union itself. This perspective would allow us to toughen up and show strength to defend jobs. In the immediate future, massive measures can be prepared with support and dissemination campaigns within the workers, the promotion of a large strike fund and assemblies in which the situation is reported and how to defend each job is discussed, because If these layoffs are allowed to pass, all media and communication workers will be in worse conditions to face the adjustment. Combative speeches are of no use if those who have the responsibility of extending the struggle remain only in words.
From the PTS we are available to contribute to the coordination with the different sectors of the educational community, neighborhoods, political and social sectors, where this support could certainly be obtained, as shown by the solidarity embrace that was made a month ago and that must be extended and deepened.
