The Confederation of Business Chambers, which brings together 25 private sector unions representing 55,000 companies, will hold an assembly next Monday to try to adopt a joint criterion for the mega wage negotiation round in a context of job destruction and lack of investment. Diego Balestra, president of the confederation, told El País that the entity has received reports from the various unions "as we are trying to agree on a line to try to go all with certain points of agreement, it is very different for the business sector to analyze a range as large as the productive sector when one faces a working sector that has a very clear approach, with two, three, four or five clear things and from there does not move, in the productive sector there are many more things than that". Balestra made these comments after participating in the series of conferences that began yesterday at the Expo Melilla, sponsored by the Rural Association of Uruguay, Radio Carve and El País.
"It's not easy for us to agree. The Chamber of Industries has a clear position that says that when the sector goes up, they (wages) go up, when things go down, I have to go down." Not all the chambers have the same position. And we, within the Confederation, we have to find a common denominator," he added.
Balestra warned that the country continues to grow but without investment and job creation. "We are with 9.3% unemployment. This means that the situation for the future is not easy. The country will continue to grow but perhaps without the necessary support so that this can be prolonged over time," he said. The businessman, who has presided over the Chamber of Industries, sees the government with internal differences that take away its margin for action. "There are different positions within the government groups. Not everyone has the same opinion. I think the internal situation is not easy for the government and there is a lot of pressure from certain sectors that are important to them and that they have to attend to. Perhaps, for the times we are in [...] this situation, thinking in the medium term, that growth can continue [...], is a possible way for them to move forward," said Balestra, hinting that the government will avoid abrupt changes of direction. But he insisted that "the business sectors have been clearly stating what we are seeing: in certain sectors there will be significant drops and agriculture will be one of them.
No more jobs
The bad unemployment data released on Tuesday, hovered over the presentations of the presidents of the business chambers that shared a panel yesterday at Expo Melilla in which they analyzed the situation of the various items. In February unemployment stood at 9.3%, eight tenths of a percentage point higher than in January (when it stood at 8.5%), and 1.1 percentage points higher than in the same month last year. Thus, unemployment is at its highest level in the last 11 years.
The three presidents who were most concerned were those of the Chamber of Construction, Ignacio Otegui, the Rural Association, Pablo Zerbino, and the Chamber of Industries, Gabriel Murara.
Otegui said his sector will not generate more jobs in 2018, although it could stabilize and achieve some growth in 2019. From its peak of 73,200 jobs in 2012, it dropped to 41,132 last January, Otegui detailed. Public works will account for 35% of the sector's activity this year and will have an upturn in 2019, as this is an election year, "and in election years something more is done," Otegui said. Construction activity began to decline in 2015, he added.
Murara explained that in the manufacturing sector there has been a situation where wages are growing but production is not keeping up, and pointed out that employment fell 3% in January compared to the same month last year. The decline of jobs in the sector began in 2012.
Zerbino said his union has a "deep concern" because although there are good prices, high production costs do not allow to take advantage of the situation. "Profitability is not found. Unfortunately the executive branch does not seem to understand how this situation is. And we fear that there is not going to be the response that we all expect that allows us to continue thinking that this dialogue table will reach a good destination. In the last working meeting with the Executive Branch I said a phrase that obviously did not go down well. We feel that there is a strong bet on the financial sector but the productive sector is not being taken into account. They got angry with that statement," he said. And he warned that there is "serious risk of cutting the chain of payments", something that, he said, would be "very serious".
"In the last roundtable there was a concrete proposal on the issue of the diesel discount with arguments, with data, with figures, which marked a viable way to access this discount that somehow alleviate the situation. Today I understand that this is not enough even if there was some kind of discount. Producers who use diesel have already planted, have already harvested, have already irrigated and therefore not enough just to lower the diesel, "said Zerbino.
The guild will concentrate its efforts on achieving improvements to the financing of entrepreneurs affected by the drought.
The technology sector is growing, but needs more people
There is a sector that has no unemployment but lacks people. The president of the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology, Leonardo Loureiro, said at Expo Melilla that "we generate a lot of jobs but we don't have anyone who wants to work with us. Companies in the sector export US$400 million a year (60% to the United States) but see that the number of graduates from public and private universities in the careers they need is insufficient (between 350 and 400 a year). The sector "grows every year and is in good health" but needs more human capital, said the businessman. The union promotes, for this reason, programs to study information technology at a distance and the program "Young people to program". And bets on trade agreements that the country can reach because they improve the business climate.
The executive director of the Association of Banks of Uruguay, Roberto de Luca, considered that banking "is solid, with great liquidity, although we do not have profitability. The executive considered that the sector's operating costs grew as a result of financial inclusion and that it faces a very high tax burden. He added that "we all get our Uber" and that the life of companies is increasingly shorter because "business models are exhausted", which requires ongoing training.
Fernando Cambón, of the Uruguayan Chamber of Tourism, highlighted the contribution of foreign exchange and employment of his sector to the economy as a whole, and called for combating informality and making air transport to Uruguay more accessible. The tourism proposal must diversify more and more, he said.
Daniel Fernandez, vice president of Cambadu (union that brings together grocers, baristas and related), noted that his sector pays wages on average higher than those of other sectors such as industry.
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Call for more advocacy by trade unions
The president of the Confederation of Business Chambers, Diego Balestra, called on the unions to "be united because that will empower us. The guilds should seek "to have a more important weight" that so far they have not had. Perhaps this is why several former union presidents were at Expo Melilla yesterday. Also in attendance were senators Jorge Larrañaga, Guillermo Besozzi and Alvaro Delgado (white), and Pedro Bordaberry (colorado), as well as the Minister of Livestock, Enzo Benech.
Source: El País
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