Santa Cruz teachers take over buildings and set up more road blocks

With new roadblocks set on nine oilfields in Pico Truncado and the taking over of buildings in Rio Gallegos in addition to road blocks in Caleta Olivia and picketing in Las Heras, the teachers' conflict in Santa Cruz recently took a turn for the worse.

The teachers’ union demands a 50 percent increase in wages and deepened the protest that reached its 41st day, while they await the government's call for negotiations.

The unions rejected the mandatory conciliation, which reached its deadline without a single meeting between both parties.

While an eviction order ruled by judge Eduardo Quelín is barely holding up in Las Heras, teachers set up a road block in Pico Truncado area, and banned YPF oil workers from entering the oilfields.

Meanwhile, 500 students protested in the centre of Pico Truncado in demand of their right to an education.

The blockades have put the province on the verge of a financial meltdown, because the money lost so far equals the total amount needed to pay the worker's holiday bonus in three weeks.

The Santa Cruz province regional CTA branch called for a strike on June 8th, in protest of the “educational, political, social and economic crisis that affects the province and the Government’s uncapability to solve it.”