Chileans Join Nationwide Protests Against Piñera’s Government

“No more abuses, no more layoffs, no more neoliberalism” was shouted by the thousands of Chileans who joined a nation-wide protest against President Sebastian Piñera’s right-wing government, organized by the Chilean communist Central Workers Union (CUT).

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In 33 cities across the country, including Santiago, the CUT, Teachers’ Union, National Association of Public Employees (ANEF), National Federation of Health Workers (Fenats), No + AFP, National Association of Officials of JUNJI, among another dozen of groups and unions rallied together to solidarize with workers and protest agaisnt the deterring living conditions of Chile. 

“Today we mobilize because our conviction is that our demands will not be put at the center of the debate if we do not go out into the streets to show the Chile that suffers,” said CUT President Barbara Figueroa, adding that “it’s not only the government who doesn’t hear their demands but opposition parties as well, so it’s our job to make them visible.”

The protestors are fighting a plethora of policies that affect living conditions such as increases in basic services costs, low and unjust salaries, privatized pension system, discrimination of women and minorities, tax injustice, precarious working conditions and a neoliberalist agenda that “undermine economic sovereignty,” as the organizers have stated. 

This march adds to a series of protests that have filled the streets of Santiago and main cities across the country in the first four months of  2019. Back on March 31, thousands rallied to object the country's current pension system, emphatically demanding to end the privatized pension model, based on the individual capitalization of pensions run by the administrators of pension funds (AFP). 

Just seven days prior, approximately 30,000 people gathered in Santiago for the “Right to Live in Peace” concert, organized to protest foreign intervention in Venezuela and the recently created right-wing South American block ProSur.