Delirious: Yamandú Orsi Wants to Allow Unions to Occupy Workplaces

Yamandú Orsi's government is about to open a Pandora's box that could further sink the already fragile Uruguayan economy.

The decision to once again allow workplace occupations, disguised as a "natural" extension of the right to strike according to the future Deputy Secretary of Labor on @arribagente, is not just a nod to the unions: it's a declaration of war against freedom, private property, and any hope of sustained economic growth.

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Meanwhile, the Broad Front is licking its lips with its seventies nostalgia, the true losers will be the entrepreneurs, investors, and, paradoxically, the very workers they claim to defend.

Let's start with the obvious: an occupation is not an act of peaceful protest, it's a hostage-taking.

When a group of unionists decides to take over a company, it not only disrupts production but also jeopardizes the entire value chain that depends on that activity.

Imagine a food factory that can't dispatch its products because a handful of agitators block the doors.

Trucks don't leave, supermarkets aren't stocked, prices rise, and the consumer pays the price.

That's the domino effect of union irrationality, and now the government wants to bless it with a legal framework.

The message is clear: your effort, your capital, your property are worth nothing against the whim of a few.

The impact on investment is devastating. Who in their right mind would invest a peso in a country where your business can be hijacked at any moment by a mob with state immunity?

Companies don't operate in a magical vacuum: they need predictability, stability, and respect for the rules of the game.

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Allowing occupations is blowing up all of that. Capital, which is mobile by nature, won't wait to see how Orsi's social experiment ends; they'll simply move to Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, or anywhere they don't have to deal with this nonsense.

And with them will go the jobs, the taxes, and the opportunities that the left claims to defend so much.

The unions, meanwhile, are rubbing their hands. Not because they care about the workers' well-being—if they did, they wouldn't sabotage the sources of work—but because this gives them more power to extort.

An occupation doesn't seek to negotiate, it seeks to impose. And when the state gives them free rein, what's left is a labor market held hostage by their insatiable demands.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the heart of the Uruguayan economy, will be the first to fall.

Without the resources of large corporations to resist or relocate, a single conflict with a union can bankrupt them.

Layoffs, closures, and more unemployment will be the inevitable harvest of this madness.

And let's not fool ourselves: this doesn't benefit the workers, it benefits the union leadership.

The average employee, the one who wants to bring home a paycheck, gains nothing from a halted factory or a bankrupt company.

But the union leaders, those enlightened ones who never set foot on a production line, do: more members, more dues, more political influence.

It's a perfect business for them, paid with the sweat and ruin of others.

The economic cost isn't limited to the immediate. Each legalized occupation sends a signal to the world: Uruguay isn't serious.

In a world where we compete for every dollar of foreign investment, this is a harakiri.

Exports will suffer when companies can't fulfill contracts due to constant interruptions. Productivity, already stagnant, will plummet even further.

And the state, which lives off squeezing those who produce, will see its revenue evaporate while the unions demand more subsidies for their "struggles."

This nonsense isn't progress, it's regression. It's condemning the country to mediocrity at the hands of a vision that puts the power of a few above the freedom of all.

If Orsi's government continues down this path, it won't just be betraying those who trusted him, but handing the economy over to the vultures of unionism.

Uruguay doesn't deserve to sink into this swamp of chaos and poverty disguised as social justice. It's time to put a stop to it before it's too late.