Bolivia's striking miners, COB return to work.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
During the first three weeks of May, the administration of Bolivian President Evo Morales had to confront a difficult situation when the labor federation Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) and workers--especially miners, the country's key labor sector--declared an indefinite strike. The country was paralyzed and a spiral of violence began. In their daily demonstrations, the miners resorted to the sector's long-standing practice of setting off dynamite sticks in the streets of the cities.
On May 8, while one group tried to interrupt the weekly Cabinet meeting, another blew up a bridge in Caihuasi, a strategic point in the altiplano, 200 km southeast of the capital La Paz. The COB tried unsuccessfully to convince the police to join the strike. The inopportune decision to strike came without an existing conflict, without a prior presentation of a list of demands, and, remarkably, only days after electoral authorities ruled that Morales could constitutionally run for another term in the presidential elections set for December 2014.
The political right, fragmented, without a program or representation, latched onto the union action and put its powerful media apparatus at the COB's disposal, so that radio stations, newspapers, and television stations gave the conflict more visibility that it had at the beginning.
Late on May 8, Presidency Minister Juan Ramon Quintana addressed the COB leadership to ask it to "be more like its base and move away from the temptation of a coup, away from the violence that leads to taking over public buildings and destroying state assets." Quintana used words that would, days later, be repeated by Morales. "Companeros, you are demonstrating with the worst language of coup mongers."
Miners demand pensions equal to 100% of salary
The strike had one demand, something still not achieved by workers in any country in the world: when they retire, salaried employees would receive a pension equal to 100% of their pre-retirement salary (NotiSur, July 2, 2004). The law now stipulates a pension of 70% of their salary when they retire. In absolute numbers, that means that, when a Bolivian leaves the work force in that impoverished country with a fragile economy, he or she receives between US$172 and $575 a month. That law was passed in 2011 and was written jointly by government experts and COB technical personnel, a common practice under the Morales administration.
Besides the 70% being what the COB asked for less than two years...
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