Presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni assured that the closure of Télam that occurred this Monday is "
definitive and total
. "
In addition, he said that this week the Government will report "the plan" for closure, as well as "the fate of the employees."
The libertarian and hard-wing political leaders of the PRO who campaigned for the closure and dissolution
of the state news and advertising agency
took the same line .
But other government sources assured
Clarín
that the official plan
has not yet been approved and that different alternatives are being considered
, ranging from the total closure reported by Adorni, to a reorganization with a change in the name of the company, voluntary retirements and early retirements. , but maintaining the news agency service and the sale of advertising, perhaps in separate units and even with a possible entry from private investors.
"In 2018, the Macri administration of (Hernán) Lombardi fired 354 employees, 40% of the total, with million-dollar compensation. But the Labor Court ordered the reinstatement of most of them, so now we have almost the same number of employees as at that time and the State wasted millions of dollars.
We cannot repeat that same mistake," an official source assured Clarín.
There is a group of technicians working with the controller
Diego Chaher
to present a plan this week to the Chief of Staff,
Nicolás Posse
, to resolve what to do with Télam.
And on Monday that decision would be implemented, according to official sources confided to
Clarín.
Although those times could be modified.
The 755 employees of the state agency
were not able to go to work since Monday,
since the Government fenced off the entrance doors and stationed police "to prevent excesses inside the headquarters," said a Government source.
But it also blocked the system and all employees received a statement from Controller Chaher announcing that they were "excused" from providing the service this week.
This "work exemption" is with pay,
so they are not going to be deducted for these days that they do not work, due to an official decision.
"If we knew that there was a definitive closure, we would already have another fighting plan," a senior union source assured
Clarín
.
And he added: "But we have the expectation that there will be
an organizational restructuring, as occurred with the announcement of the closure of INADI,
whose staff remained working within the Ministry of Justice. For this reason, we have not yet launched a strike or the seizure of the buildings where Télam worked, as we did during Lombardi's administration".
In fact, the general secretary of the Buenos Aires Press Union (SiPreBa),
Agustín Lecchi
, had entered one of the Télam headquarters on Monday morning, along with a small group of workers, shortly before the arrival of the police and that they fenced off the main entrances, prohibiting the entry of staff.
"But we decided to leave,
because our intention was not to take the buildings, but to preserve the public heritage," Lecchi assured
Clarín.
And he added: "For this reason, we also started a camp, at the gate of Télam."
The limits of the intervention in Télam
Decree No. 117, of last February 2, ordered the intervention of all public media companies of the national State: Télam, Radio and Television Argentina (National Radio and Public TV), Educ.ar and Public Contents (Encuentro, Pakapaka and DeporTV).
These companies remained under the orbit of the Chief of Staff, Nicolás Posse.
The auditor appointed was
Diego Chaher
and the deputy auditor was
Diego Marías
, who "jointly" had the same powers that the boards of directors of all those companies had.
Until this intervention, Télam was still under the leadership of a Kirchnerist official who had been appointed in the administration of Alberto Fernández:
Bernarda Llorente
, wife of the former Minister of Defense, Jorge Taiana.
But on Thursday of last week Marías resigned, so the controller Chaher is now left as the strong man of the public media, since he will be able to make decisions on his own, without the need to agree on everything with
whoever responded to the hard wing of the macrism in the PRO.
Chaher is a Mendoza lawyer specialized in finding legal formulas for the decisions made by those who hire him.
He did this for
two decades at Grupo América, where he was Legal Affairs Manager
of the company of Daniel Vila, José Luis Manzano, Daniel Hochbaum and Claudio Belocopitt.
Before, businessman Eduardo Eurnekian, who was head of Posse and Milei for several years, was also one of the owners of that media group.
The intervention of public companies in the communications sector
is for one year
, with the possibility of extension by the Chief of Staff.
And it is an intervention that the Government intends to carry out as
a transition until these companies are privatized
, as proposed by the omnibus bill,
or directly dissolved
, as claimed by deputy Hernán Lombardi (PRO), former Secretary of Media and Public Content in the management of Mauricio Macri.
Until this Monday, Télam functioned as a news wholesaler, disseminating
500 articles (cables) per day to more than 800 media outlets
to which it provided service, along with some 200 daily photos of the most diverse events, from a soccer match football until the opening of ordinary sessions of Congress held last Friday by Javier Milei.
In addition, it was in charge of implementing, controlling and billing the distribution of the national government's
official advertising
, until Milei decided to suspend the official advertising for a year.
To carry out all these tasks, Télam has
755 employees, most of them permanent,
distributed mainly in its two headquarters in the city of Buenos Aires, located at Bolivar 531 and Avenida Belgrano 347, which this Monday dawned fenced to prohibit the entry of its employees. employees.
It also has correspondents throughout the country, including in Antarctica,
It will be necessary to see what path the Government takes
, where the different official sources indicated to
Clarín
that they will be taken this week to debate the plans and only next Monday what that decision will be will be announced.
Although with the dynamics that this conflict took, the times could be modified.