The shrinking of the State undertaken by Milei's management is reaching the most technical areas.
Now they report that there were layoffs in the
National Meteorological Service (SMN)
.
And they warn that reducing the number of people could severely affect the functioning of the body.
This Tuesday morning, SMN employees held a protest at the entrance to the organization's headquarters in Palermo.
As
Clarín
was able to find out with delegates from the Association of State Workers (ATE), they have already fired two people from the Forecasts and Society Services area who started working in recent years.
The director of one of the areas would have submitted her resignation after telling her employees the bad news.
One of those fired is an anthropologist and the other was the director's secretary.
"They were told that as of March 31 they will no longer belong to the organization," the delegates said.
Among the workers there is concern about the rest of the list.
"We are waiting for them to tell us what the total number will be. They told us that we will only know it tomorrow, Wednesday. We are demanding that they publish it today, without delay. This agony that they make us live through is bloody and cruel. We do not know how many people will be fired. "
It will be a terrible damage to one of the areas of the service
."
The SMN has 1,200 employees throughout the country, and about 200 are military personnel.
The rest are civilian workers.
"Of them, 670 work under contract: I have been under contract for 12 years. The rest are permanent staff," explained the delegate who spoke with this newspaper, and estimated that those disaffected will mostly be hired: "The dismissed person can be anywhere side of the country. A weather or forecast station may be affected. Areas will be greatly affected by the shrinking of the State. The situation is stressful and distressing."
From ATE they point out that at first it had been estimated that the cut would affect 20% of the staff, which is equivalent to 150 people: "That was said at first. But then they told us that the layoffs will be below that number.
We don't know how many there will be
."
SMN employees complained today about possible dismissals.
"The colleagues who are outside the headquarters are alone.
They are workers who are in isolated points within the national territory
," say the delegates.
They assure that there were already few people for the meteorological stations and that this reduction will affect their operation.
"There are stations that
could close
if they fire the observers," they denounce.
"We are clear that the cut will affect the operation of the service. We are close to Easter, and this Government, instead of giving us an Easter bagel, leaves us without a job," they claimed.
Another area affected by the shrinking of the State would be the National Parks Administration.
Employees of that agency said that the contracts that expire this year will not be renewed.
"For now there are no details. We do not know how many people it is," they said.