MAY DAY: Bolivia: Growing Discontent Among Already Desperate Workers by Alejandro Campos Inter Press Service News Agency 12:58pm 1st May, 2003   LA PAZ, May 1 (IPS)    - Bolivian workers will celebrate International Labour Day Thursday but amidst uncertainties about the future of their jobs and deep frustration, which threatens this impoverished country's democratic stability.    This year's commemoration of May 1 could go down in history as the gloomiest since democracy was restored in Bolivia in 1982. Since then, hopes for achieving better working conditions have never seemed so futile.    On Feb 12 and 13 came the most tragic incidents of social discontent in nearly 21 years of democracy: 28 people died in La Paz during clashes between city police and the military, triggered by the government's attempt to impose an income tax.    Nothing was the same after that episode, which included the looting of shops and public offices and revealed the great weakness of the political system and of the government led by President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who lost control of the situation.    Bolivia's acute economic and productive crisis and the increasing liberalisation of markets are behind the process of a systematic loss of workers' rights, according to the influential non-governmental Centre for Studies of Labour and Agrarian Development (CEDLA).    This process, pushed by policies of flexible hiring, has intensified the exploitation of workers, who otherwise face joining the ranks of the unemployed -- 13.5 percent of the economically active population in urban areas.    The governmental National Institute of Statistics reports that, nationwide, 9.5 percent of the economically active population is unemployed, but trade unions say that figure does not reflect today's hard reality.    According to CEDLA, 60 percent of the working population is underemployed, in other words they are not working as many hours as desired or remunerated in accordance with the job or skill level.    In the past 10 years, real wages increased an average of 70 percent, but the income of manual labourers in industry remained nearly constant: 34 to 47 dollars a month at current exchange rates.    The trends of distribution of income in Bolivia -- considered South America's poorest country -- are particularly unfavourable to that labour sector.    In 1992, the top 20 percent of the labour force in terms of income received 54.9 percent of total wages, and by 2000 the portion reached 59 percent, while the 20 percent with lowest wages saw their share drop from 4.3 to 3.0 percent in that period, according to CEDLA figures.    Given this panorama, it comes as no surprise to Bolivians that the country's largest union federation, COB, has organised protest marches in all major cities.    The workers taking part in the demonstrations are demanding permanent jobs, solutions to the economic crisis and a change in the Bolivian economic model that since 1985 has placed priority on the market and private sector, says Milton López, the COB organising secretary.    ”The wages paid in this country are not enough to put food on the table, considering that they are undercut not only by inflation but also by currency devaluation,” said Julio Mendoza, a leader of the union of Santa Cruz department, 900 km east of La Paz.    The country has 8.4 million inhabitants and some 110,000 people enter the labour market each year. This year only 33,700 of these new workers will find jobs, say experts.    And there are no indications on the horizon of economic recovery in the short term. Instead, it appears that social problems will continue to worsen, and could lead to scenarios of unrest.    ”There is a tendency towards further deterioration of labour conditions, the natural result of crisis but also of the actions of the business sector,” Bolivian labour researcher Gustavo Luna told IPS.    He predicts ”more conflict and greater polarisation based on inequalities.”    A seed has been planted for greater organisation amongst unionised sectors, which seek to recuperate lost terrain as far as labour rights, and at some point that will lead to political action, says Luna.    ”The fact that they are closer to the ground in their long fall puts the pressure on the trade unions to defend their interests and seek political alternatives in which they themselves will be subject to some sort of change.”    Click on the link below to read IPS special coverage of labour news on May Day from around the world. Visit the related web page
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