At least 24 branches of the local government’s Monte de Piedad remain closed in Oaxaca due to protests by the entity’s workers for three days.
The protesters demand the resignation of the head of the organization, Omar Julián Julián, whom they accuse of incurring in administrative irregularities and lack of attention to unionized workers.
Led by their union delegates, Araceli Silva and Raúl Alfredo Medina, the officials indicated that they are waiting for the authorities to call them back to a negotiating table, after the failure of a first meeting held on Friday.
Evolution of the protest
The protests began three days ago and escalated from internal statements to the closure of the headquarters, in the city of Oaxaca, and the general strike on Saturday.
In total, according to the protesters, there are 24 properties of the Monte de Piedad that remain paralyzed in the eight regions of the state, with the Central Valleys (14) and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (four) as the most affected areas, as they have the largest number of branches.
In an interview, the protesters warned that the mobilization will be indefinite, as long as there are no approaches from the state authority.
“We did not have favorable responses to our requests, derived from that, today we saw the need to request that operations be stopped throughout the state. There was no response to our requests.
“They are attention to the needs of all branches, attention to the working base and, above all, the protection of the vulnerable population,” they indicated about their petition.
On various posters that have been pasted outside the branches, there are slogans accusing the director of the Monte de Piedad de Oaxaca of engaging in nepotism, by allowing relatives from his inner circle to work in various areas of the organization.
They also said that, although they have requested the intervention of the highest authority to resolve problems such as the lack of air conditioning in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region, Julián has ignored such demands, despite the fact that it is evident that his pace of life has taken a favorable economic turn since he arrived at the institution. In addition, they accused him of acts of harassment and threats against him.
“We are waiting for a call from the government, we are open to receiving the call to sit down and talk. We are not closed to dialogue,” said leader Araceli Silva.
“We tried to keep this from happening internally, to ensure that the director took action on the matter and produced results so that we could remain open to the public,” said delegate Raúl Alfredo Medina Villegas.
He also explained that initially there was no problem with the director, but given his refusal to fix the problem at the Monte de Piedad, “the worker base has decided that he should leave the institution, since up to this point he has not shown his good intentions for the Monte de Piedad to provide services,” added Medina.
Although 24 buildings remain closed, the union delegates indicated that the protest is still in its first stage.
Alleged acts of corruption
The workers ruled out that their protest is linked to acts of financial mismanagement, as was initially reported, because they stated that they are in favor of audits being carried out throughout the institution to establish the method for managing finances.
On Thursday, during the first day of the workers’ protests, it was revealed that the protesters were against the results of a series of audits carried out within the organization, which revealed mismanagement in the procedures implemented by the institution’s staff, including appraisals and under-appraisals.
In light of this, they reiterated that their complaints revolve around the lack of response to their administrative requests and the acts of harassment undertaken against them.
“It is totally false, these are internal issues, of lack of attention from the director, which his administrators have not been able to fix, but at no time has there been any mismanagement. We are open to the audit here,” said Medina Villegas.
Authorities defend the director
Last Friday, the Secretary of Government of Oaxaca, Jesús Romero, defended the director of the organization under the argument that “he has had a conduct at the height of responsibility.”
Asked about the protest of the officials, he indicated that it was being attended to and “I hope that there is a good agreement with the worker base and the director.
“Everything can be resolved through dialogue. The only thing that cannot be resolved through dialogue is corruption, there will be no way. If corruption was detected, I am not saying that the workers or anything, but if there are audits and it was reviewed that there are bad procedures, well, what do we do? There is no way that it is swept under the rug,” the official stressed.
He reiterated, without elaborating further on the subject, that the cases of corruption that are detected must be investigated.
Source: milenio
