After more than a year without granting personal interviews, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner accepted a face-to-face grilling with the press during the Argentine Construction Chamber’s annual conference.
The interview had been recorded last Tuesday during the meeting, but was only aired today via Construir TV, a channel owned by the UOCRA builders’ union and dubbed «the first trade union channel in the world».
Cristina highlighted the airing of Construir TV during the channel’s official launch, citing its invention as an achievement of the new Media Law.
«When [UOCRA chief Gerardo Martínez] put forward the idea of a trade union having a TV channel it seemed to us that part of the dream we had with the Media Law was beng put into place, it is not just anti-monopolies but it also guarantees diversity and plurality of voices,» the head of state said during the chat.
Construir TV also quizzed CFK on the importance of infrastructure works. «Construction is one of those spaces or economic activities where there is a great deal of positive interaction between the owners and unions,» she explained, adding that the relationship «has allowed for excellent development of the infrastructure plan our model has had since 2013 onwards.»
«This has allowed UOCRA’s membership base to grow and allowed the country to be strengthened by economic and social infrastructure that it needed, because we went through decades of telling the people that infrastructure was an expense, not an investment.»
The president also defended the employment policy of her government, comparing it favourable with European countries historically recognised for their strong labour laws.
«Workers here, across Argentina and not just in construction, are the best paid workers in all Latin America,» she said, pointing out that in Germany and France a debate had arisen over «freezing salaries for three years, and they are once more discussing labour flexibility.»
«Models like ours do not just need to be taken seriously, they must be taken care of by their beneficiaries, which are the workers,» Cristina underlined, adding that «a lot of people would like to see unemployed workers because that allows salaries to be kept low.»
Journalist Jorge Rial had been the last person to interview the president in September 2013, just before the legislative elections. That conversation took place in the middle of a series of talks with Cristina, who was forced to cut short the interviews after undergoing craneal surgery towards the end of last year.
buenosairesherald.com