translated from Spanish: the work that does not live the contingency by COVID

In Dos Bocas, Paraíso, there is no contingency, every morning the area surrounding the construction of the new refinery, is activated to serve the workers working on the work that has not stopped despite the PANdemic of COVID-19. In addition, dozens of people waiting for a job opportunity gather daily because in that coastal municipality, unemployment is more concerned with citizens than the virus.
There is no police presence there, nor do the municipal authorities show up to instruct citizens waiting to keep their way or properly port the cover.
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Workers waiting for recruitment are not afraid to stay between five and seven hours agglomerated on the bank of the ‘Rio Seco’ because they are confident that they could soon be called to start work; most of them also made long lines outside Tabasco Park in Villahermosa, when the state administration led by Adam Augusto López Hernández, organized the reception of documents for those who aspired to obtain one of the 20 thousand seats that the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced.
However, contingency has become a factor in some of them being rejected as part of the population considered at risk to the virus.
The workers at the refinery’s construction work with a short distance on the second construction package. Photo: Manuel López.
“The situation of us was the decree that the government put, that over 60 (years) were sent to rest; certainly, on the one hand it was good, but the one who was hired rested on contract and the one who did not, nor looking for him because they do not want to hire him,” criticized Ramiro Arias, a 68-year-old man who has served five months trained on hold.
For Don Ramiro, age is an obstacle to bringing food to his family, because he remains the only supplier. For this reason, sitting among other workers, he complains that the measures implemented by the authorities are affecting many older people who are now without income because of the pandemic.
Tabasco accumulated this August 7 23 thousand 783 cases of COVID-19. Paradise has reported 643, according to data from the State Ministry of Health.
The municipality that houses the new refinery is in fifth place in the death ranking with 12% of the 2 thousand 171 recorded to date.
Despite this, the fear that some citizens feel about seeing their homes in misery is much greater than that of facing a disease for which our country does not yet receive a vaccine.
Yoli Jiménez, a young parayse, who has been unemployed for three months, alternates her visits to the work with the sales of food she makes in order to survive with her family; now it is she who supplies what is necessary to her parents and a sister with a disability.
– Aren’t you afraid to come here and be exposed?
“It is a risk that all of us take, but because we have to take it because we have to seek the sustenance of our home and so, we trust In God that he will keep us, he will provide us. If we don’t get out of our homes, then there is no sustenment.”
On the shore of the flow in which meters in the front is shown a huge blue crab gathers women and men of different ages, some interns of university careers, other professionals of trades that are useful in the constructions, all willing to accept the place that companies offer them in order to have a safe salary.
During the mornings, the healthy distance is lost between the motorcycle walkway that stretches over the road line. In the crowd there are few properly placed sketch covers, although they can also be seen hanging from one ear, covering the throat or even staggering into the hands of their wearer.
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Hired without measurements…
After six o’clock in the morning, a large number of orange overalls are entrusted at the entrance of the land where one of the most important projects of the current federal administration is built.
In the rush to be on time, the staff forgets to walk away a metre or a half from the previous companion in training, the conglomeration is charged despite the darkness by the anti-reflective who show the closeness of the arms and legs that each worker has while waiting his turn of entry.
Workers of the work waiting to start their turn, only some keep healthy distance. Photo: Manuel López.
The construction of the Dos Bocas refinery, Paraíso, was considered one of the priority programs to continue during theCOVID-19, establishing it in the presidential decree published on April 23 in the Official Journal of the Federation.
Seventeen days earlier, the Ministry of Health issued an agreement in which it stated that “those steel, cement and glass production companies that have contracts in force with the Federal Government, will continue activities that allow them to meet short-term commitments exclusively for the projects of Dos Bocas, Tren Maya, Felipe Angeles Airport, Transysmic Corridor; as well as existing contracts considered indispensable to Petróleos Mexicanos and the Federal Electricity Commission”.
Near the end of the morning press conference offered by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on April 13, the Ministry of Energy presented a video where he ensured that the work took measures to prevent COVID-19, as well as the dissemination of them among the workforce.
The prevention measures taken by ICA Fluor Daniel, S. de R.L. de C.V. Fluor Enterprises, Inc. (Package 1 Manager in construction) with its employees to prevent an outbreak within the work could not be verified, and is that, by observing the presence of Political Animal in the vicinity of the property, managers pressed for the staff of the medium to withdraw from the public road , threatening to call out Navy elements and be arrested.
Animal Político asked the Sener for information on possible contagion within the work, however, at the close of the edition, the dependency has not shared the data.
Rosario de la Cruz, a street vendor in the area, said workers try to maintain a healthy distance when buying their products, but every Monday in training to start work happens the opposite.
-They do take their healthy distance. But did you realize that to form they don’t take their healthy distance?
– Is it like this every day?
“Well, it’s not always, it’s when the trucks that line up pile up, but usually they always come in one by one.”
Read: AMLO announces anti-crisis plan: low wages to officials, curbs government spending and maintains flagship works
“Those closed doors are”
Among the workers stands out the fed-up of waiting, who have spent more than 150 days on the bench feel tired, but also spite. In their talks they complain that there are more foreign employees in Dos Bocas than tabasqueños, point out that the priority for the ‘chocos’ was a promise of the president from Macuspana but it did not happen that way.
“Yes, for who does not feel deceived by the President of the Republic, imagine,” replied Humberto Javier de la Cruz.
Underneath a head cover already almost transparent by use, the man narrated that daily he leaves his house in the ranchería Dos Montes, of the municipality of Centro, to Puerto Ceiba, Paraíso, hoping to be hired.
The expenditure of 140 pesos and the two-hour tour each day more fuel the anger at the lack of contracting, in addition to the impotence to see that the company has brought its own workers. De la Cruz criticized that the requirements have been strengthened for them and the investment to meet them is magnified without giving hope to recover it.
Humberto Javier de la Cruz travels daily from the municipality of Centro, the capital of Tabasco, to Paradise to get jobs in the refinery’s work. Photo: Manuel López.
Through a bulletin issued on 5 June, the Ministry of Energy (Sener) announced that to date, the construction of the refinery had generated 34 thousand 42 new jobs, eight thousand 19 considered direct.
He also specified that a thousand 133 employees are women, while 26 thousand 23 are men-occupied squares.
The workers in waiting said that the unions have only managed to place small groups in the refinery’s work, since the start of the pandemic, the guilds barely reached the hiring of between 10 and 15 people. In fact, they recalled that a call was recently made for 300 people, but only hired 10.
“Companies haven’t opened the portfolio yet, there are many companies that already bring their people, people from outside and we are waiting and waiting here. But no way, so is the politics of companies here in Paradise,” Roberto Morales said with a face of concern.
Three months have been enough for their hope to be overshadowed by the lack of hiring, and even recalled that a week earlier some people came to the City Council where they were told that they would soon have contracts on the site.
The salty air carries and brings the stories of each of those who gather there in search of a job, among them those who have already been called, but he did not get to answer the phone and missed his chance.
The truth is that the refinery project did not take Tabasco out of the first placeis in unemployment, in contrast to other entities, the “Eden” of Mexico registers a 6% of the population without employment, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
In June, 4.2% of the economically active population was looking for work.
The motorcycles of the unemployed waiting for a job in Dos Bocas, form a walkway flush with the road and there are no authorities in the area. Photo: Manuel López.
Haggled workmanship
The Dos Bocas refinery project was announced with an investment of $8 billion, of which 16 million 527 in advances and purchases have been used during the first year of construction, as reported by the Secretariat of Energy (Sener) and Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex).
In that report, Sener and Pemex explained that the builders of packages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 received advances totaling one million 424 thousand pesos, also accounting for the 806 thousand pesos that Samsung received on the other hand as a preview of the Procurement of Modules of packages 2 and 3.
Despite this, in the next package by Samsung Ingeniería S.A. de C.V. the salaries offered to the workers was reduced and no overtime payment is offered.
José Luis Méndez and 16 other colleagues working in the area of battery slums went on strike when he learned that the salary dropped from 2 thousand 300 to 800 pesos per week. This group of workers were outsourced by ICA Flours Daniel through Pimosa, a company dedicated to deep foundation.
The employees affected were only the tobacco companies, which is that they accused that workers from other entities are receiving better benefits where they are even considered travel. José Luis noted that they were not notified by his company of the new working conditions, but that the details were received by other people.
Realizing the situation, they went to the managers to question the reasons why they would stop receiving the starting salary for a 7:00 am to 3:00 pm and would now earn less with an extended schedule of 12 hours, without contemplating an overtime cost.
The response of The Pimosa executives was not kind, on the contrary, they warned the dissatisfied that if they did not agree, they could sign their resignation. The discussion was filmed and posted on social media.
Unemployed within the site where the refinery is built, workers belonging to the CTM guild in Paradise demanded that they be terminated according to the law for the six months of work they had in the contract with ICA Flour Flour, but their demands have not yet been resolved.
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Original source in Spanish