translated from Spanish: Federation of Metro Trade Unions filed a complaint against the company

On Thursday, the vice president of the Federation of Metro Trade Unions (FESIMETRO), Eric Campos, together with the president of the Federation, Paula Rivas, the president of the Central Unitarian Workers (CUT), Barbara Figueroa, reached the 1st Ju Laboral Letters to file a complaint about alleged anti-union practices against the state-owned passenger transport company, particularly the Security Sub-Management, led by José Miguel Abarca, former general of Carabineros.La action was taken after Campos was accused of alleged assault on a company watchdog, when a mass of hundreds of workers entered the corporate building on November 20, to protest against the proposed reduction of labor benefits and so Metro intended to pay for the operational damage brought to the destruction of some stations of the network, in October 2019.As described in the complaint presented, “attended that the pedestrian access door located in Alonso de Ovalle is a small door , where only one person can transit at a time, which logically in the face of an agglomeration of people can be a risk, Campos, proceeded to stay at the front door trying to safeguard the safety of workers at the entrance. Also, once he had made his admission, he proceeded to lift the doorknobs from the entrance gate of access vehicles.” It is at that moment that a person who was dressed in a civilian and without any identification related to the company Metro S.A. approaches our representative, asking rudely lyforh that he did not proceed to lift the obstacles of the vehicular access gate. In response to this request, Campos instructed him not to worry, for in his capacity as Vice-President of the Federation he would be responsible for all his representatives to enter the compound safely and peacefully, to which the person withdrew from the place,” he says writing, after which it becomes inestheus that, from the Security Sub-Management, on which surveillance personnel depend, a complaint of physical assaults is raised against the leader. Campos noted that there is a “brotherhood” within the company in the security sub-management: “We are talking about José Miguel Abarca, a general of Carabineros in retirement, and Andrés Inostroza, who was Director of the School of Cavalry of Carabineros until the year 2018, when the notorious fine horse trafficking fraud occurred. We are not going to accept that we are being put against workers, but above all, we are not going to shut up, we are not going to back down when it comes to defending workers’ rights. Here there is clearly an apparatus, with military and police preparation that what it has done is to make these capacities available to try to silence the trade union role. Not even in the dictatorship, we had seen something like this in our company.” For Paula Rivas, this is an unprecedented situation that “never in 30 years of unionism in Metro had happened. José Miguel Abarca, together with four headquarters in that area, what they do is they mount an accusation that an alleged video backed, which ended up being a lie. We saw the video and the situation never happened.” He adds, “We are union leaders, how we’re going to be having some kind of hostile attitude towards our peers.” For her part, Bárbara Figueroa, president of the CUT, referred to the indictment in which, as an organization, they take part in the complaint that directly affects who is also Vice President of the Unitarian Power Station.” If state-enterprises believe that by mounting they will be able to establish policies of effective social dialogue, clearly what we are telling the private world is that these practices are accepted, they are welcome in companies; therefore, we make a first wake-up call about it. We understand that this is not only trying to frighten the union leaders of Metro, but also try to impose practices of violation of fear, to silence the voice of trade union leaders,” he stressed.

Original source in Spanish