Santa Fe: The Gender Secretariat lays off 41 workers
The workers released a statement on Wednesday announcing the decision, although they have not yet been formally notified.
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Workers from the Secretariat of Women, Gender and Diversity of Santa Fe denounced this Wednesday, through a statement, the dismissal of 41 people who perform tasks in that organization.
The measure would entail the second round of staff cuts at that department. Governor Maximiliano Pullaro eliminated the ministerial structure that housed gender and sexual diversity policies in the province last December.
Ministerial sources confirmed to Periódicas that the decision comes within the framework of the review of permanent positions and contracts initiated last December following decree 38/2023 of the provincial Executive, which established a review commission (belonging to the Ministry of Economy) with the objective of evaluating the administrative acts initiated during the government of Omar Perotti.
The 41 workers laid off would be in addition to the 24 dismissals carried out in January of this year by another decree from Pullaro. They have not yet been formally notified of their situation.
Uncertainty
“Today, workers from the Secretariat of Women, Gender and Diversity of the province of Santa Fe (formerly the Ministry), in a context of continued erosion of gender and diversity policies, learned of a ruling that seeks to revoke the permanent positions of 50 workers,” they denounced in the statement released. The workers described this as “an almost complete dismantling of the Secretariat.”
Among those who would be dismissed are cis women, trans men and women, lesbians, gays and non-binary people "who were performing functions since the previous government administration, who signed their transfers to permanent staff, submitted their medical files and have been performing their functions as part of the permanent staff from September 2023 to the present day."
The layoffs will affect different areas of the structure: Territorial Strengthening, which provides technical support to social organizations, Assistance to Municipalities and Communes, which provides technical assistance to the governments of the different localities throughout the province, Communication, Training and Education on gender and diversity issues.
A political decision
The workers argue in the released text that the decision "contradicts the public statements of Governor Maximiliano Pullaro and his officials" who "claim," on the one hand, that "there is not enough money," but on the other hand, "have increased the number of political appointees since they took office."
"This is the political decision by Governor Maximiliano Pullaro and Minister María Victoria Tejeda to leave a historically vulnerable population without work in the midst of the country's historic economic crisis, adding to the narrative of harassment towards public workers, women and LGBT+ people that has been maintained by the government of Javier Milei," they emphasize in the text.
After informally receiving news of their possible layoffs, the Secretariat workers discovered that they could be laid off due to "irregularities" in their hiring with the former Ministry of Equality, Gender and Diversity.
"What's happening is that we received a ruling, not officially, but through the unions and by speaking with officials. The ruling states that all of us who were hired permanently after working under a contract through the Rights Promotion Scholarships program will be notified of irregularities in our transfers, and that we will have a couple of days to submit a defense, and based on that defense, the dismissals will be determined," workers from the Secretariat of Women, Gender and Diversity Periódicas
The aforementioned scholarships were part of the 2023 Joint Agreement for Transition to Provisional Permanent Staff, where it was established, in article 1, section G, that these workers had job continuity and were therefore eligible to enter the permanent staff of the departments where they worked.
"The irregularity they're raising is the lack of job continuity, which they assume is due to a lack of continuity in payments, which happens with all scholarships. Perhaps the payments were delayed by two months, but we still worked during those months; in other words, the employment relationship was always there," they explained.
This is not the first round of layoffs at the Secretariat. Since the beginning of the year, a total of 66 workers have been dismissed. “In addition to the 24 workers laid off in January, there are 42 people who took up their positions and are currently performing their duties, like the rest of the staff, for this administration, and who recently submitted their medical records,” the workers Periódicas
And what about gender policies?
These layoffs not only leave women and dissidents out on the street overnight, but also raise a big question: what will happen to the public policies that were carried out by the former Ministry and those carried out by the Secretariat?
“If we are not here, it means that policies for training, advising, funding, data collection, prevention, care, and support for victims of discrimination, gender violence, and abuse will not be able to be implemented by those with experience in that field. It almost amounts to a shutdown. It means there will be more female officials than male workers in the Secretariat,” they explained.
Currently, the workers of the Secretariat are in a state of assembly, so the structure is virtually paralyzed at the moment.
The article was produced and published by our partner media outlet, Periódicas .
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