Sunca union members receive their salary but do not work

Law 17,940 on union freedom was passed in 2005 during Tabaré Vázquez's first government.

This law establishes union leave, meaning paid time off for union members in both the public and private sectors.

Although in Uruguay union members have always enjoyed the privilege of union leave, this regulation extended the practice to unimaginable levels.

Decree with privileges 

In addition to the aforementioned law, decree 653/006 of 2006 regulates union leave for Sunca, the construction workers' union. 

Union leave means that only the union leader, not any worker, requests paid time off from their company, which will be paid and counted as actual worked time for all purposes.

The union member who enjoys union leave receives their full salary but doesn't go to their workplace. 

Since the time of Óscar Andrade leading Sunca, this union has tried to extend paid time off for its leaders.

Those who have more privileges are the members of the National Executive Board. They are an elite who, under the pretext of performing representation tasks for wage earners, get paid without working.

The minimum paid union leave that union members enjoy is as follows:

National Executive Board and Branch leaders: They enjoy 55 days of union leave per year.

Departmental Executive Board leaders: They enjoy 24 days of union leave per year, with exceptions for Maldonado and Canelones, who have 33 days.

Leaders of grassroots unions who are also leaders of federations or confederations: They are entitled to 10 hours of union leave per week.

Of course, it is common for these minimums to be widely exceeded, and union bosses enjoy far more days of paid time off. 

The National Executive Board

Paid union leave is distributed among the handful of union members who control Sunca, where the vast majority of workers have no influence.

The National Executive Board decides behind closed doors which union members will spend weeks, months, or years getting paid without working. 

As is public knowledge, Sunca has been controlled by the Communist Party for decades, because they supposedly win the elections. 

As already reported by La Derecha Diario, the Communist Party rigged union elections on several occasions,

Everything indicates that it carried out successive electoral frauds, according to what opposition union member Damián Rodríguez reported to the Ministry of Education and Culture. 

Union leave should be used for work-related purposes, but in Sunca this is not the case.

There are union members who use it to carry out party activities, and even for personal purposes completely unrelated to the union's activities.

Privileged elite

Unfortunately, in Uruguay dozens of construction workers die every year in workplace accidents.

But this never happens to the members of the National Executive Board who enjoy union leave, who have comfortable offices at the union headquarters on Yi Street in Montevideo.

On some occasions, they also have cars at their disposal, driven by a "compañero" who acts as a chauffeur. 

They also enjoy per diems paid with union funds.

Many times, they have to travel to the country's interior for assemblies and meetings, and everything is paid with the funds paid by the members. 

Far from being a horizontal organization, Sunca is led by a privileged elite who enjoy paid time off, have per diems to travel around the country, and live far above the rest of the workforce.