Public sector workers continued this Thursday their protests in areas of Venezuela to demand salary improvements from the government of Nicolás Maduro. For this, they demand the repeal of the instructions of the National Budget Office, in force since March, in addition to decent wages and better working conditions.
The demonstrations have mainly been called by the education sector, which denounces the incomplete payment of the vacation bonus and that he warned that teachers will not return to the classroom in September if there are no solutions. Tired of the abuses and outrages, they emphasized in statements and slogans that Onapre “stole” their economic benefits and confronted Maduro.
In Caracas, they gathered in front of the Ministry of Education. The health union, pensioners and retirees have also joined the calls, protests and mobilizations. A crowd chanted slogans, blew whistles, clapped, shouted, banged pots, waved the Venezuelan flag and waved their banners. It would be the largest concentration of affected workers recorded in recent months.
“Maduro, you are a wretch”
“There are no medications, there are no gloves, there are no injectors. If a public worker gets sick, he dies. Dude, you are a wretch. With all your entourage, you’re killing us. You don’t want to pay us. That is not a lie”, claimed the nurse José Tadiz.
“Your fortnight, your accounts, are very fat. While we are stripping cables”, added the health worker.
They later went to the Ministry of University Education to continue with the demands. Then they tried to reach the National Assembly, but officials from the Bolivarian National Police and the Bolivarian National Guard blocked the way of citizens. The officers, according to a report by journalist Erika Hernández, from The National, They alleged that they were carrying out an activity a few meters away.
“The streets belong to the people, not to the police”, “We are teachers, we are not criminals”, “we are teachers, we are not criminals”, shouted the demonstrators.
“More than 2,500 people joined this mobilization in the face of the government’s chaos of snatching vacations from university and secondary education workers. We have not managed to break the fence that the security forces have to be able to march through the city. (But) we have achieved our goal in coming this far. However, it is not possible, and we made it known, that we cannot continue and we are not going to fall into a provocation that could generate opposing elements for the next mobilizations. This march that ends here today is the prelude to a set of struggles and fights that we are going to give”, said Eduardo Sánchez, president of the National Workers Union of the Central University of Venezuela, on the corner of El Chorro, in the center of Caracas, before a picket line by the national police.
“An August of Arrechera”
“Who taught them to make their first letters? We the educators. We want a living wage for our children, we don’t eat well. They are asking us for an August of peace, what August of peace? We do not have August of peace. We have August of indignation, of arrechera, because they have not paid us. Our wages were stolen. They robbed us of the sustenance of our children, of our grandchildren. Maduro, listen to the teachers, we are very upset. We want a living wage! Worthy!” Arcelyz Marín, a teacher in Nueva Esparta, told the press.
#NOW | Arcelyz Marín, teacher at #NewSparta: “We want a living wage for our children, we don’t eat well”.# 04August #OnapreNosEstafa #BonoVacacionalYRecreationalYa
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— News Everyone Now (@nta_vzla) August 4, 2022