More than 1,600 Chilean public officials, in just one public department, the Agricultural Development Institute (INDAP), have been mobilizing since Thursday, August 29, to demand salary and labor improvements.
The National Association of Officials of the Agricultural Development Institute (INDAP), ANFI, dependent on the Ministry of Agriculture, seeks to ensure that its members can provide a service in accordance with the requirements of its target audience, the Chilean peasantry.
Carol Berríos Matus, president of the National Association of INDAP Officials; ANFI, explained that “At the national level, due to the annoyance of not complying with an agreement that we had signed with the authority, where the quotas remained in the regions; where the quota was generated, the quota remained, but also, we took advantage of this opportunity to make visible the demands of INDAP workers,” she said.
In this struggle, INDAP workers have the support of the union and trade union of the National Association of Fiscal Employees, ANEF, who join this demand for public service objectives, regarding which, Sandra Marín Cheuquelaf; president of ANEF Araucanía stated that “Faced with situations of violations in the exercise of public service have led to this decision in an ascending mobilization, which has already been carried out since Thursday of last week; on Friday they had a meeting with the national director, however, the bases sanctioned, defined, to continue with this mobilization,” she said.
Marín Cheuquelaf added that “It is something extremely valuable for us as a territory that the leaders also occupy national spaces, let’s end centralism, from the territories we can generate leadership, we can generate leadership, and we can generate the most important thing, which is mobilization.”
Job insecurity has been dragging on at INDAP since at least 2017, a fact that harms the objectives set by the management of this public institution, a fact that directly harms the national peasantry. In this regard, for Carol Berríos Matus, this situation is due to the fact that this public service is very precarious, since “More than 90% of its employees are contract employees, that is, with contracts from January to December; less than 8% are permanent employees, that is, they have job stability; the rest are only contract employees, in the same way, the civil service staff has 130 fewer people since 2017 and we execute more budget every year, and we execute more budget every year, with less available personnel, and serving a range that exceeds 100 thousand users”, she said.
The annual budget for this public service is 315 billion pesos, approximately 345 million dollars, which means that the country lacks personnel to execute it, a fact that the national president of ANFI explained in detail: “Araucanía is a very large region, it is the largest region at a national level; of the 315 billion executed by INDAP, 63 thousand are from Araucanía, we serve 50 thousand users with 235 employees, and a little less, perhaps at this time for a long time, so, from a labor point of view, it is a very stressed region,” she explained.
Among other problems, INDAP has a lack of recoverable staff, little or no mobility in the civil service career and assignment of grades, no promotion contests for permanent officials, stress and workload that prevent proper civil service performance, weakened regions and areas without replacements and with a large increase in sick leave, meager travel and overtime budget for the regions; without recovering the budget before the pandemic, increased workload with programs, and demands external to the functions of INDAP and its workers, have led to the beginning of this mobilization, which could become more acute, the leaders detailed.
Santiago de Chile, September 3, 2024
Digital Chronicle/
