translated from Spanish: Municipal Theatre lays off 59 workers amid financial crisis

As a “very tough situation” described the Director General of the Municipal Theater of Santiago, Frédéric Chambert, the crisis that the precinct experienced and the layoffs that occurred on Wednesday, where 59 workers were disengaged from the institution. “The Board of The Municipal of Santiago approved a Restructuring Plan for the institution, which allows it to deal with the delicate economic situation it is going through, and that ensures the continuity of the Theater and its healthy functioning”, says a statement broadcast this morning by the Theater. This plan was developed in conjunction with the consultancy Vinson Consulting, and considers – among other measures to boost revenue and reduce the expenses of the Theatre – an “endowment adjustment corresponding to 59 workers of the institution (13.5% of the total)”. “It is certainly a very difficult situation and we have had to make painful but necessary decisions to secure the future of the institution,” Frédéric Chambert explains in the statement. Most of the unaffiliated staff belongs to the technical administrative support system (23 people), and this adjustment in the staff will mean savings of approximately 1.5 billion pesos per year, as explained from the institution. It is worth mentioning that the Municipal Theater of Santiago has been in financial imbalance for some years, and this month some unions decided to publicly criticize the current Administration for the week-long delay in paying salaries of artists and workers of the institution. In response to the day of layoffs, the workers marched around 16:00 hours from the Theater to the Municipality of Santiago, where they hoped to express their dissatisfaction with the situation.

Original source in Spanish