Around 50 health workers held a new protest in front of the Government Palace on Friday, March 5, to demand their contract formalization as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the chant of “We want labor justice,” they arrived at the Government Palace marching at 9:26 a.m. along 60th Street, after reiterating their position on the demand, which is definitive contracts, the doctors, nurses, orderlies, chemists, and other specialists marched around the main square.
This day, contrary to the first protest where they forcibly broke into the Government Palace, the leader of the protestors, Dr. Mercy Sánchez Soberanis, announced that they would not approach the police guard out of respect for authority. They would withdraw until some state government official attends to them, receives the request list, or establishes a dialogue table to resolve this job insecurity.
This group distanced itself from politicians, although Dr. Mercy Sánchez acknowledged that at some point, some of her colleagues met with the government candidate of the Morena party, Joaquín Díaz Mena. However, the leader stated they are not affiliated with any political party or work for one. Their fight is to be given job certainty with definitive contracts. That is why they rejected the three-month contract extended by the federal government, but they attended their jobs even if they were not paid.
In response to this offer from the federal government, the protesters chanted the phrase “contracts today, politics tomorrow” as they returned to the main square.
They also did not want to hold President López Obrador responsible for their situation, who offered during the pandemic that all health workers who were provisionally hired due to the pandemic would have definitive contracts and would earn the same salary and benefits. However, with the June 2 elections in the country approaching, the Ministry of Health fired the workers called “health heroes” in the pandemic because the state governments (all opposition) did not sign the transfer of the health services to the federal government.
“This is not political, we just want job certainty,” insisted Dr. Mercy Sánchez. “The state and federal governments have demonstrated coordination in their work, let them find the solution, I leave this case on the table for you.”
The group left 61st Street in front of the Government Palace at 10:15 a.m. and marched on 61st Street in the opposite direction so that 61st Street from 58th Street would also be closed.
TYT Newsroom
