Juan Francisco Palacios Murillo, general secretary of the construction workers affiliated with the CTM in Zacatecas, lamented the loss of 160 jobs due to the permanent cancellation of the second level of the metropolitan boulevard.
He mentioned that before work on the viaduct was suspended in March, there were already 40 workers affiliated with his organization who were hired and whose employment had to be suspended.
In addition, he said, there were another 120 with guaranteed contracts that could not be finalized after federal judges issued provisional and permanent suspensions against the project.
“They said the citizens don’t want the second level, but we do. These are jobs that benefit us because we don’t have permanent jobs. The promise was two and a half years of employment with benefits. We had secured good salaries for the workers,” he recalled.
Palacios Murillo recalled that a fierce struggle had been waged since last year to get the company in charge of the viaduct to agree to their participation. He even said that during the demonstrations and protests, some people were unjustly detained.
“We, as the most affected, were never taken into account,” he insisted.
After the state government announced the early termination of the contract with Hycsa, the company that won the road bidding process, the Secretary of Public Works, José Luis de la Peña, reported that nearly 1,000 jobs had been lost, as well as the possibility of creating up to 2,000 in later stages of the project.
Source: oem
