Chamber of Deputies advisors protest against mandatory resignation

Mexico City. A group of workers who work as advisors in the Chamber of Deputies held a demonstration today in said room to denounce that the Political Coordination Board (Jucopo) would be responsible for issuing an agreement to force them to sign their resignation as of next 30 April, even though their contracts are still valid until August 31.

Amid slogans such as “salaries yes, layoffs no!”, the protesters gathered in the central courtyard of the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro and highlighted that it is still not known where exactly the initiative to make them resign from their positions came from, and At the same time, argue that they will be given compensation, but without mentioning that this money will be taken from the salaries that they will no longer receive and to which they would be entitled by contract.

“We have an uncertainty that is neither human nor healthy for all the workers in this facility. We are honest workers, we have had marathon days here, along with them (the deputies), and we have no problem complying with those schedules, but let them not play with our salary, with our families, and do not lose sight of the collateral damage that this entails,” highlighted Iker García, on behalf of the injured advisors both in San Lázaro and in the Senate.

The protesters indicated that there would be at least 2,000 people affected by this measure, who receive an average monthly salary of 30,000 pesos. If the 4 months that will no longer be paid are taken into account, and that were already contemplated in the budget of the Chamber of Deputies, the total is 240 million pesos, the use of which is not clear.

At the same time, they claimed, the deputies authorized a payment of almost 1,500 million pesos for their “lead bonus” (3 months of salary plus their vacation bonus), which would be equivalent to 450,000 pesos for each of the legislators who they leave their position.

For her part, the independent representative Susana Prieto, who came to show solidarity with the protesters, stressed that the advisors, legislative liaisons and assistants who have contracts for professional services – who are the ones who write the initiatives, points of agreement and even speeches they present legislators—were asked to sign their resignation as of April 30, without respecting the remaining 4 months in which they should still receive their salary.

The Jucopo, he regretted, claims that the compensation to said workers for the end of their contract will come out of that 4-month period, “when really what they should do is pay their salaries until August 31, 2024 and then pay them the compensation, because they are two different sources of income and budget,” as established in an agreement that was signed since 2002.

Despite this, “historically, their salaries have always been stolen at the end of the legislature or at the beginning of the next one. This situation cannot continue. It cannot be that we are making labor-management relations precarious from the Mexican State. The deputies of all parliamentary fractions are incongruous, who ask that the rights of workers in the country be exercised, when we are violating them from the Chamber of Deputies by remaining silent” about this type of abuse.

Prieto said that, although he tried to enter the Jucopo meetings to raise this issue, a guard prevented him from entering, while asking that responsibility for this initiative not be assigned to a single party, so as not to “politicize” protest.

“The deputies would be nothing without them (the advisors): they do my paperwork, they give me all the documentation when I attend the committees. What am I going to do, tell them ‘I am going to get paid, but the coordinators of the parliamentary factions say that you are not, because that is the condition for rehiring them in the 66th Legislature’? “That is something vulgar and immoral,” she emphasized.

After emphasizing that “the salary is sacred, because it is what keeps us alive,” the legislator called on the Jucopo to send to the Plenary Session of the Chamber of Deputies the vote on a point of agreement on this issue before April 30. “We suggest that it be urgently resolved, because they are using the deputies to ask the advisors for their resignation, that is the worst.”

The PAN deputy Juan Carlos Romero Hicks also attended the demonstration, who “in his personal capacity” expressed his solidarity with the dissatisfied workers and pointed out that the Jucopo would be responsible for this agreement, since it is in charge of the administration of the Chamber. through a management committee.

“There is a lot of irregularity here: the first is that there is no appropriate labor regime for advisors, and it is not current. A contract is handled as if it were a civil contract, not an employment relationship, and here it is what it is: an employment relationship with schedules and tasks.

“Second, the advisors do not have a copy of their contracts, and they tell the workers that they cannot repeat (in their position), because they have to spend 3 months to do so (when) there is not a single rule in this country that does so. establish”, he pointed out.

“We are in uncertainty, because there has not been a single official communication (about the request that the advisors resign), but it is inappropriate to have the workers with this circumstance. The Board must ask itself what is the legality and justice in this whole circumstance.

Personally, I am going to accompany them,” he highlighted.

Other advisors who also spoke warned that the initiative to make them resign from April 30, without respecting their contract period for 4 more months, is not only “an act of injustice” that harms them and their families. , but also “affects the entire legislative process and compromises final reports” and other activities.

“We cannot allow the irresponsibility of saying ‘they’re not going to pay me, so I’m leaving’” without finishing their work. “Where is that money going to go, into whose hands, to whose campaign is it going to reach? That worries us a lot,” they stated.