For the workers of the Mexican Institute of Water Technology (IMTAJanuary was a month of constant mobilizations, they had to abandon their daily research activities to try to explain to society why an institution like this should not disappear.
On 17 December 2021, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) confirmed the disappearance of the institute, together with the National Institute for Ecology and Climate Change (INECC); the justification, “use public resources for clear purposes, avoid duplication of functions and close spaces for corruption”.
Since that statement, the members of this institute have been informed by the Workers’ Union of the Mexican Institute of Water Technology (SITIMTA), they generated a work agenda to protest, it started with a permanent general meeting on January 7, later the delivery of trades to Morelos deputies was made on January 10, 2022 and a press conference the next day.
On January 17, they convened another press conference related to the extinction of the institute in the state of Morelos, in which they announced that there are more than four thousand projects, many of them interdisciplinary, and that they support the IMTA technically it does not duplicate features with Conagua, with the Semarnat or another institution. “The Conagua is an operational-administrative body of the country and the IMTA is the technological arm of the water sector,” they explained.
They recalled that IMTA is a model institution of self-sustainability, as workers have since its decentralization, in 2001, started to generate “own income”, which to date represents almost half of the annual budget it spends.
For this reason, they called on the competent authorities to reach agreements for the continued existence of IMTA as an autonomous center, independent of the With water. Citizens, experts, researchers, and associations joined in his request, such as the Morelos Convention on Energy and Food Sovereignty and the defense of the labor rights of workers; the National Coordinator of University, Higher Education, Research and Culture unions; the National Union of Workers; the New Central of Workers; the national coordinator of retirees and pensioners “Elpidio Domínguez”; public and private educational and research institutions; trade associations in, among others, the science, technology and innovation sectors.
On January 26, another conference was held in the Morelos State Congress, supported and convened by Deputy Tania Valentina Rodríguez Ruiz, of the Labor Party, who assured that “there is a risk that IMTA as an autonomous institution will disappear, with many negative consequences for workers and their families, ”he added, adding that this union, unlike others, is mostly scientists, teachers, doctors, engineers with a local and national scope of work and of course in important and valuable research on the subject of water.
The next day, IMTA workers held a rally and spoke out against the “integration” of the institute in Conagua into the main square of Mexico City. From five o’clock in the morning, they were present to request that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador listen to them, invite him to tour the IMTA and get to know the institution, but only a representative of Citizen Attention of the Presidency named Fernando Luna, was the one who received the manifesto and petitions.
“The SITIMTA tells Lic Andrés Manuel López Obrador that we are reaching the 4T of Mexico. We appeal to you to allow the IMTA workers to exercise our right to a trial, to speak directly to the Head of the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources; the head of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare; to the Committees of the Legislature (hydraulic resources, drinking water and sanitation; environment, sustainability, climate change and natural resources; science, technology and innovation, among others) and especially to you, Mr President, the achievements in IMTA’s trajectory to benefit of society, especially the most vulnerable population “, the Union said in a public statement.
They also carried out a blockade in the vicinity of the zócalo and were again supported by representatives of, among others, INCA Rural, Sutnotimex, SUTIN, STRM, Conajupe, who allowed the Ministry of Labor to ensure that it would receive a commission .
Already in the secretariat, a commission of five investigators was received by Raúl Vergara, director of Institutional Strategy, and Fernando Serrano Monroy, reconciliation officer, but the response was that as long as there are no actions that violate labor rights, they can not act, it is, no legal action has yet been taken.
Later they went to Semarnat and held a rally; A group of four workers also held a meeting to expose their problems, but no action routes were determined by the authorities.
By these dates, the IMTA workers were waiting for answers to their requests and that the government had given up, with all the information provided, to make the institution disappear; but nonetheless,
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they end the month again with a demonstration in the center of Cuernavaca Morelos, where they joined the so-called National Day of Unity Struggle, where several unions protested.
“We do not want more incidents in the substantive activities of our institutions, we are unions and organizations that are not allies of the corrupt, we are workers who try to do our job with the tools that our institutions give us and that we do it in the best way possible ”, the trade union states.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx