This is a regrettable fact and one of deep institutional concern.
While the PIT-CNT —that organization that lacks legal personality, that collects resources from workers, that exerts constant pressure on the productive sector and that has contributed for decades to tensions affecting the country's economic growth—was holding its traditional event on May 1, with the Socialist International as its emblematic fund, several figures from the parties that made up the governing coalition were present: deputies María Eugenia Roselló (Colorado Party) and Valeria Ripoll (National Party), together with the Deputy Pedro Jisdonián (PN), former legislator Álvaro Viviano and Jorge Larrañaga
Vidal.
This is not a simple act of courtesy or listening. Attending implies, de facto, granting institutional legitimacy to a union federation that has historically operated as a political actor with methods of confrontation that go beyond legitimate labor demand. When La Derecha Diario pointed out this reality with the clarity required by public debate, deputies Roselló and Ripoll responded visibly angrily to our post. They did not understand — or did not want to understand — the core of the questioning: not only the content of the speeches they heard, which in themselves are disastrous, but also the very fact of validating with their presence an event of an institution that acts outside of full legal transparency and with practices that have been the subject of repeated criticism by productive and taxpayer sectors. Why should they attend the PIT-CNT event? Do we owe him anything? Are you afraid of that mob?
They could have expressed their opinions from their benches, from their networks or from any public space without the need to legitimize the stage. The argument is elementary: attending is equivalent to validating. And to validate an organization that:
- Compulsively collects contributions from workers,
- It exerts systematic pressure on employers through measures of force, - It has contributed to a model of
labor relations that generates rigidities and costs that hinder economic development, - And operates without full legal personality,
which raises questions about its institutional accountability
.
That is not constructive dialogue. It is a gesture that weakens the coherence of traditional parties, those that should represent a clear alternative to the interventionist and confrontational model that the PIT-CNT embodies
.
And here is the truth without anesthesia, because it must be said with all its harshness: the PIT-CNT and the unions that make it up are not “defenders of workers”. They are disastrous and destructive to the real economy. They don't create wealth; they destroy it systematically. They impose a model of labor rigidity, extortion and permanent blackmail that increases costs, discourages investment, generates unemployment and stifles productivity. Their logic is always the same: “either you give in to our irrational demands or we paralyze everything”. They don't defend employment; they liquidate it
.
Look at the fishing sector, a paradigmatic case of its destructive capacity. The Single Union of Seafarers and Allied Workers (SUNTMA), affiliated with the PIT-CNT, has been involved in conflicts after conflicts that have paralyzed entire fleets for months in the middle of the harvest. In 2025, a single conflict accumulated losses of between 10 and 15 million dollars in one month; in total, the sector lost more than 40 million in recent conflicts, stopped fishing for tuna and swordfish on several occasions and saw companies close or leave the country. More than 3,000 workers were temporarily out of work because of the paralysis imposed by the union. Result? Less production, less exports, less foreign exchange and, paradoxically, more unemployment in the sector they supposedly defend. The SUNTMA chose to “fly everything through the air” with irrational demands about rudder guards, hours of rest and broken agreements, while companies warn that Uruguay is losing competitiveness compared to countries with more rational unions. This isn't labor defense: it's pure economic sabotage
.
In construction, the SUNCA (Single National Union of Construction and Related Products) follows the same destructive manual. Its history of prolonged strikes—such as that of 83 days in 1993, one of the longest in Uruguayan history—and recurrent national strikes for “safety and health” (ironically, while imposing rigidities that make works more expensive) generate delays in projects, increased costs that are transferred to housing prices and disincentives to private investment. Employers face a climate where any union demand can stop entire works, increasing risk and holding back the housing and infrastructure development that the
country needs.
And they don't stop there. In the industrial sector in general, the unions of the PIT-CNT and the Confederation of Industrial Unions have contributed to the loss of thousands of formal and informal jobs in recent years: factory closures, mass layoffs and a “culture of unemployment” that stifles productivity. Companies close because they cannot compete with imposed labor rigidities, while union leaders live on compulsory quotas and unaccountable political power.
In
any case, although the criticism of these presences was harsh and necessary, the greatest responsibility lies with the one who led the republican coalition for five years: Luis Lacalle Pou. His government was lukewarm and complacent in the face of trade union power. It did not change a single structural interest of the PIT-CNT, it did not intervene in its coffers or its historical privileges, and it systematically opted for the pact and “social peace” rather than for a profound reform that would limit extortive trade unionism. It is this legacy of excessive moderation that explains — and to a certain extent enables — that today's leaders of their own parties consider it natural to sit in an event where the Socialist International resonates
.
Roselló, Ripoll and the others present did nothing more than follow that line of least resistance. Their attendance reflects a worrying shift to the left in sectors that should be the main containment dam in the face of the advance of collectivist ideas
.
Make no mistake: criticism does not seek to disqualify people, but to defend principles. Traditional parties have a historic obligation to represent the defense of private property and economic freedom. If they begin to normalize their presence at events that exalt confrontational unionism, that barrier erodes
.
Uruguayans who work, produce and promote the country's progress have every right to demand coherence. This is not a minor detail. It's a clear sign of what's at stake.
Enough dialogue with those who destroy. Time to confront profound principles and reforms
.
