“It is natural for workers to vote for comrade Jeannette Jara and it is unnatural for workers to vote for the far right,” stated the president of the CUT (equivalent to the British TUC), José Manuel Díaz. After receiving proposals from the trade union organisation, the presidential hopeful indicated that they would be considered in the formation of the government’s programme and noted that the CUT’s ideas “give a slightly better account of the reality of Chile, of a balance in which there are different sectors, different views, and different interests that must converge towards a common well-being.”
El Siglo. Santiago. Last Thursday, 14 August, the presidential candidate for progressivism and the left, Jeannette Jara, received the national board of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) at her campaign headquarters. There, CUT’s president, José Manuel Díaz, indicated that “we have come to visit our candidate to express to her the agreement of our trade union organization, from our National Executive (the Broader National Study Council). It held a fairly wide-ranging debate on the issue of the presidential elections, expressing the concern we have about the advance of the far right. This resulted in the unanimous support of the trade union movement to endorse Jeannette Jara’s campaign.”
“We are not like the business owners who make demands through the press, through paid inserts in El Mercurio (right wing newspaper); we bring concrete proposals and she committed to studying them to incorporate them into her government programme,” stated the CUT president. He emphasised that “it is natural for workers to vote for comrade Jeannette Jara and it is unnatural for workers to vote for the far right.”
Meanwhile, Eric Campos, the general secretary of the organisation, declared that “with great enthusiasm and much joy, we, the leaders of the Executive Committee of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, have come to support Jeannette Jara. Those of us who believe in social rights, those of us who live on a salary, are with Jeannette Jara and we want that to be very clear.”
“That you come to give me your support today truly fills my heart with energy for the upcoming electoral tour,” said the presidential candidate.
Jara stated: “I would like to thank the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores of Chile, first, for coming to present their proposals, within the framework of the programme discussion we are having and which, as you know, will be officially presented this Monday. Until now, we had received proposals from both the parties that competed in our primaries and from business groups that have held forums, where they have also expressed their concerns, but I believe this balance was missing.” She added that the CUT’s ideas “give a slightly better account of the reality of Chile, of a balance in which there are different sectors, different views, and different interests that must converge towards a common well-being.”