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Political, Economic, Social and Union Analysis, during the Pandemic in Paraguay

This government does not respond with social-economic policies in the face of the pandemic, it has burdened the entire cost of the crisis on the workers of the countryside and in the city. Meanwhile, it increases foreign debt which, in the end, workers will pay.
Story by: Central Unitaria de Trabajadores Auténtica 
 
Paraguayan society is going through a difficult context that places the workers before one of the worst economic, political and social crises that our people have suffered. This situation is due to the deep world crisis of the capitalist system, which was aggravated by the appearance on the world health scene of the Coronavirus as a serious threat to the health of the peoples, which aggravated the crisis of the neo-liberal model, presenting a dark scene for all the humanity.
 
The government of Mario Abdo Benítez, faithfully fulfilling the mandates of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which dictate the economic recipes to backward countries like ours, is promoting and deepening the economic model, whose consequences are the worsening of poverty, extreme poverty, unemployment, salary cuts, massive layoffs of workers, plus the gross violation of the labor rights achieved in the National Laws and the Conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO). 
 
This government does not respond with social-economic policies in the face of the pandemic, it has burdened the entire cost of the crisis on the workers of the countryside and in the city. Meanwhile, it increases foreign debt which, in the end, workers will pay.
 
The most outrageous are the scandalous acts of corruption perpetrated by high representatives of the government, which have exposed the well-known modus operandi of this gang of criminals and thieves who govern and plunder the Paraguayan State with impunity.
 
 PARA
 
In this state of things, the disease arrived and demonstrated that our economic model is already obsolete and needs urgent changes to build a New Social Order. The government of Mario Abdo Benítez, with his policy of neglect and disinterest to guarantee sanitary conditions, continues in terrible conditions, without equipment of the intensive care rooms in the hospitals, not complying with the minimum conditions of biosecurity for the health workers. The government of Mario Abdo Benítez, doesn’t offer any alternative economic plan to reactivate the economy, with labor measures to ensure the maintenance of employment and generate Decent Work, as well as a wage policy that sustains the purchasing power of the workers.
 
The government demands strict compliance with the quarantine, but it does not guarantee the people an efficient policy for surviving with dignity; the miserable "social aid" programs are absolutely insufficient; it only reaches a small sector of those affected and those who access, receive a misery. What family can survive on G. 500,000 (around 75 us dollars)
 
Given the serious crisis that the country is experiencing, we consider it necessary to urgently increase aid and subsidies for workers and sectors in need to ensure a decent livelihood in the face of the quarantine extension. In addition, the urgent implementation of a National Emergency Plan.
 
We reject the fact that the government is unloading the entire cost of the crisis onto the backs of the workers and sectors of the middle class, and is systematically refusing to tax the usual privileged people, the soy growers, the cattle ranchers, the bankers and the big financial corporations, in addition to taxing the large estates and the big fortunes.
 
We express our total disagreement with the opportunistic attitude of the government, which in this stage of the pandemic crisis is promoting a harmful project of State Reform without our participation; we reject this reform because it aims to reduce the role of the State in health, education, social security and other social areas, it does not include tax reform which proposes changing the character of our tax policy so that those who earn most are those who pay the most taxes.
 
As for the project to create the Civil Service Law; we reject it because it was not discussed with the workers of the state, it does not improve the working conditions of the workers, it promotes labor precarization, it violates the acquired right of labor stability, violates the legal spirit of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and especially because it maintains the coercive policy of the Right to Strike.
 
 PARA 1
 
Faced with these problems, the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores Auténtica proposes to the government a National Emergency Plan consisting of:
 
1. Apply a decisive social change 
The serious crisis leaves in evidence and aggravates, the great pre-existing problems of the national economy and that government tend to naturalize, assuming that great social injustice "as normal". The representatives of the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare have already exposed that what is generically called "returning to normal" is a return to the state of the precariousness of public health in Paraguay. 
 
Re-directing the so-called capital investments to Social Investments, changing that matrix. Let's end with misleading speeches that, when we talk about big construction companies are essential investments but when we talk about the invisibility of people in need is transformed into non-viable expenditures. These Social Proposals are essential, since we have the need and obligation to ensure the RIGHT to a Minimum Vital Income, which certifies the daily and sustained consumption of families, not only of food but also family needs (health, transportation, housing, clothing, education, recreation, etc.). Measures that guarantee the dynamization of the local, popular, and national economy. It is urgent that these sectors can count on the necessary capital in order to cushion the effects of the lack of income. The United Nations' agency, FAO, in its latest reports places Paraguay among the last countries with social measures to alleviate the crisis. 
 
We require measures to guarantee consumption that will consequently and sustainably boost domestic demand, generating the desired and also the so resented monetary circulation, which accompanied by real measures of food production with Family Farming, would provide economic means and the security of having resources in the next 6 (six) months, prioritizing the groups that face greater affectation and vulnerability. These groups are mainly women, workers in the formal sector and in the informal economy, the unemployed, micro and small enterprises, day laborers, both urban and rural.
 
2. Loan Plan 
It is urgent to implement an agile plan of monetary loans to at least 1,000,000 heads of family, equivalent to 150 US dollars per month for the next 6 (six) months, to be paid back in 10 years, with interests equivalent to the annual inflation rate, as requested by the workers of land and farm when they presented their proposals for reactivation. Let us remember that the most developed countries are planning to pay these debts over a period of almost 40 years, which many countries in the region are already implementing as an emergency measure.
 
3. Combating Outsourcing
Implement a determined fight against outsourcing which, by means of treacherous mechanisms of sub-contracting, destroys decent employment, with practices that evade labor, tax and social security rights, and deepen inequality. To end with the justification of the massive outsourcing that, in reality, sustains a fraud. And also end the elusion of the norm that each permanent job has a full employment contract. This measure is only possible if there is political will.
 
4. Housing Construction
Carrying out an innovative and intense Housing Construction Plan, which would generate genuine new direct and indirect jobs in the neediest sectors, combat the denigrating and immoral speculation of rents, mitigate the pressing problem of the lack of popular housing.
 
5. Expand and Strengthen Priority Measures
It is necessary to expand and strengthen the priority measures, improving the operational capacity of the executing entities, ensuring adequate focus and effectiveness, with organic accompaniment of those affected. 
 
6. Strengthening Rural Economic Resources
Rural economic resources must be strengthened since they are not detached from the crisis in the cities. The economy of the rural families generates genuine productive jobs, they speed up the best distribution of the national income. We also note that a large number of urban workers come from the countryside and are the first to lose their jobs, in domestic work, construction, tourism, trade, and especially in the space of the informal economy. We must understand that the cities are the major consumers of all agricultural products, that when entering the crisis, the most vulnerable sectors are being more affected, because of the loss of urban jobs, essentially the capacity to consume, so we must also focus attention on the peasant economy, which provides this consumption.
 
7.​ We reaffirm
The business proposals of "productive measures to sustain production, generating the conditions for the subsequent reactivation and initiation of a growth process", as they proclaim in their press releases, are not enough.
 
In the face of this unprecedented crisis, we must end with speeches aimed at making up for the inaction of an important sector of our economy, more attached to financial speculation than the generation of Decent Work.
 
 PARA 3
 
8.​ The Sources of Resources
The funds to guarantee these actions are available, if the Executive undertakes a decisive Political Action, with parliamentary agreements, proposals for modification of Laws and Regulations:
 
  • Use of the reserves of the Central Bank of Paraguay (BCP) and the international reserves.
  • Adjustment of the Legal Framework to redirect the funds foreseen in works such as the duplication of the Tras-Chaco route, construction of the new bridge to Chaco-i. 
  • Suspend all works that are not essential in these moments of crisis (Example: Remodeling the Government Palace).
  • Apply a Special Tax, because of the Covid19, to the great national fortunes.
  • Adjust the taxes on financial profit, sugared drinks, alcohol, tobacco, soy, livestock, and financial chains.
  • Redirect the Social Expenses of the BinationalsITAIPU and YASYRETÁ
  • Minimize tax exemptions, which are equivalent to more than USD. 500,000,000 (five hundred million dollars) per year.