Salta governor Juan Manuel Urtubey ordered a 50% salary raise for the police personnel in his province. Minimum wage will pass from 4.342 to 6.516 pesos, while public employees will enjoy a 25% increase starting next May.
First reports from the province, however, suggested that striking police, who continued their protest, rejected the increase as insufficient.
“This represents a 50 percent salary raise. It is an effort which will allow an improvement in the income for not only policemen or medical doctors, but for teachers and the rest of the public employees”, stated Urtubey during a press conference.
In addition, he affirmed that “as long as I am Governor, we won’t agree a raise that is not covered by the provincial budget. That would be an inadmissible act of irresponsibility,”.
Despite the protests, Urtubey sustained that “over 90% of the police officers were on duty,” and pointed out to “a small amount of retire personnel, combined with other exempt agents”, as responsible for the manifestations.
According to Salta’s Governor “120 people were detained on Monday night, 75 of them minors and 45 adults. Damages were provoked in 12 stores and instances of theft were reported in 13 more.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald