2023-05-07 14:00:00
Sergio Castro (66) is the new Secretary General of the Union of Public Employees (SEP), following winning with the White list in the last internal elections of the union, on April 28. Coming from the Public Health sector, which he entered in 1975, he identifies with the leadership of the historic leader of the SEP – now deceased – Raúl Ángel Ferreyra.
“Union militancy is exercised by listening to colleagues with their needs and problems in each of the departments,” Castro affirms before PROFILE CÓRDOBA.
–Does that make any difference with the way it was happening in the guild?
-No. The position of (José) ‘Pepe’ Pihen as a legislator, whose postulation beyond the fact that there was an offer was voted on and approved by all the comrades, is important because we believe that a worker representative is in the legislative sphere to fight more directly what is related to to changes in laws. As Pepe did at the time with the promotion to permanent plant of the colleagues in the administrative career that had been postponed from the time of Governor (Ramón) Mestre. Those spaces should not be lost.
–This is an electoral year and there will be lists of candidates. Does the SEP want to participate in the assembly of these lists?
–We as a guild cannot intervene. I head a pluralist list in which there are radical, socialist, independent comrades and from all Peronist sectors, and I respect them all very much. I think that things should not be mixed, one is the trade union sphere and the other is political, but as a labor movement we are going to support those comrades who want to run to intervene and form lists in the next elections, according to their ideological positions, but outside the union. As far as the union is concerned, I want to comply with what I proposed in the campaign: to sit down and talk with each comrade, in each of the departments, as the new Secretary General of the SEP, both in the Capital and in the interior.
– Will this dialogue also be with the ‘self-summoned’ Health?
We are ready to talk. Beyond the recognition that they proposed to the provincial State for what happened in the years of the pandemic, which should have been recognized immediately, the union had already been demanding the salary situation in the hospital sectors, but the provincial government did not listen to these proposals and what happened happened. I am convinced that we all have to have an instrument called a union, if there is no union nothing can be achieved, neither individually nor by ignoring union organizations. The most correct thing is dialogue, sitting down to talk and agree on the salary and work improvements that we all want.
-This year there will be a change of government in the province and there are two candidates, Martín Llaryora and Luis Juez, who are positioned as eventual winners. What expectations do you have regarding one or the other?
-We, as a union, would like to know what the proposal they are going to have will be. There are two strong candidates that the people are going to define with their vote and we would like to know how they are going to align with respect to our expectations. Yes, we are going to sit down to talk, but we are concerned regarding the situation of the colleagues in the Health sector and when it comes to the central administration there are also problems of lack of human resources. We also want to know what decision is going to be made in the Ministry of Finance, where they have been using the virtual system and there is no law that regulates this way of working. I am talking regarding the comrades who work in the Property Registry, in Rents, in the Cadastre, in the Civil Registry and the IPJ (Inspection of Legal Entities), as well as the comrades who work in Paicor and who have been abandoned. This mechanism has been felt a lot in the interior of the province, in places where they do not have good working conditions. At the time, the SEP prepared a project that Pihen presented to the Legislature, but it was never dealt with.
There is much talk of labor reform. What position will the SEP adopt in this regard?
–We will take a position when it arises. Now, the most serious problem we have in the public administration, and above all in the hospital sectors, is the lack of human resources. I was at the recently inaugurated Provincial Maternity Hospital, which has been very nice, but which unfortunately requires more personnel. They’re talking regarding regarding 85 more people in the nursing area, specifically. In addition, there are people who have retired whose positions have not been filled. We have been demanding that the 2X1 be established, that people who retire automatically implement the replacement income and put aside the job insecurity that exists throughout the province and that causes there to be some professionals who are charging $76,000.
– How do you assess the situation of provincial retirees?
This is an issue on which we will continue to protest strongly. Retirees in general and provincials in particular have been losing for many years. In our case, we are particularly interested in what happens to our retirees, the provincials, who see 18% of their contributions disappear. The liabilities of the province want and must return to collect 82% of their assets. That we have to achieve.
–Another insistent claim is that of the social work of the Province.
–Yes, with Apross (Provincial Health Insurance Administration) we also have a job to do. I have traveled the entire provincial territory and throughout the interior I received the same claim, that the coverage of the provincial social work does not meet its objectives. I have been presented with really worrying cases, such as that of a patient who wants to be seen by a gynecologist, for example, and has to pay an extra $8,000 or $9,000. Specialties that do not have coverage and affiliates have to travel to the Capital to be treated. Doctors are charging Apross coinsurance ranging from $360 to $580, when a Pami doctor receives $1,200. You have to adjust this.
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