Uruguayan trade union says more than a third of the population participated in general strike

According to Uruguay’s largest trade union confederation PIT-CNT, more than one million of the country’s 3.2 million inhabitants participated in the 24-hour general strike called by the organization for Thursday against the “government model of inequality.”

The secretary general of the union’s umbrella organization, Elbia Pereira, said the strike was directed against wage cuts, high prices, and a planned social security system reform.

Abdala added that the strike “has found enormous support in the central administration, in all companies, in all public and private education, in public and private banking, in construction, in all manufacturing, in essential services for the population, except for health care.”

The president of the PIT-CNT acknowledged that the strike had no impact on transport, as there were buses in the cities, but they were empty.

For his part, the Secretary of the President of the Republic, Álvaro Delgado, criticized the work stoppage, writing on the social network Twitter that the Workers’ Center was carrying out a general strike against a draft social security reform.

However, “there is still no draft, there is still no reform. But a strike harms those who want to study and work.”

This is the fourth 24-hour general strike called by the PIT-CNT in the current government term, which began March 1, 2020.

In the 12 months to August, Uruguay recorded an inflation rate of 9.53% and a cumulative inflation rate for the year of 7.74%.