Giving the Wheel Another Turn / Rebeca Monzo

Oil by Hubert vonHerkomer

Recently the talk on my planet is the imminent dismissal of half a million workers who are on staff performing work which, in reality, could be done by half as many people.

In the seventies, there was a large decrease in the staffing at some of the central agencies. At that time it was given the euphemistic name of rationalization. It reduced the payrolls. Those workers who were available, or surplus, as they preferred to call them, found work in other workplaces, regardless of the knowledge or experience acquired. In reality, it was no more than that, moving them from one place and putting them on another. Years later the number of new workers in each agency, is twice what it was.

Later, in the nineties, with the investment of foreign capital, some could go work for the newly created companies, bettering their economic status. It was a small privileged sector, envied by the other workers. We all wanted to work in some company, even just to mop the floors. It didn’t matter what the job was, the thing was to be in contact with those unattainable dollars.

Now they say that the “redundant” workers can go to work in the private sector. And I wonder, in what private sector? Because up to now, outside a few private restaurants, the paladares, what’s left? What are their options?

Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to create and pass the first official labor law for the private sector, its regulations and options, before this mass layoff that will affect three times as many people, as for every individual who loses their job, there are at least two or three family members who depend on them.

What was the previous government thinking when they increased these payrolls, putting three people in a position that really only needed one. What I believe that we are once again turning the wheel.

September 17, 2010