Demands to overcome the uncertain crisis affecting the country, demands to create a source of employment, the creation of a new Labor Law that guarantees individual and collective rights and the defense of life were the basic demands of thousands of participants in the parade that took place in the streets of the center of Quito, this Monday, May 1 , in commemoration of Labor Day.

A rainy morning delayed the start of the parade announced at 08:00 by the Social Security Fund, on Avenida 10 de Agosto, very close to Avenida Patria, in the center-north of the capital.

Guillermo Lasso’s security policy goes from states of emergency to declaring terrorism a threat

At the head of the march were the leaders and members of historical trade union organizations such as the United Workers’ Front (FUT), the General Workers’ Union (UGT), the Ecuadorian Confederation of Free Trade Unions (Ceosl) and the People’s Union Ispred. Unions of workers from the power, health and oil sectors, from the Provincial Council of Pichincha, among others, completed a mobilization that was well attended.

Ángel Sánchez, Secretary General of Ceosl, assured that those who attended the march demand that the government of Guillermo Lasso commit to governing and defining wage, labor, economic and security policies for Ecuadorians. “We see terrorism and killers take over the country, and we are suppressed, closing businesses, watching our families starve.”

Almost equally throughout the march, slogans were heard and read demanding that Guillermo Lasso and the current representatives step down from power and that urgent measures be taken to restore security in neighborhoods and cities across the country. Silvia Guevara, who attended the march, confirmed that people today not only face a lack of work, but also that their lives are in danger every day because of crime.

The new president of the FUT and part of the UGT, José Villavicencio, stated that this mobilization is not only to mark the 137th anniversary of the massacre of the Chicago martyrs in the United States, but also to raise the voice for fundamental aspects such as safety, work and life .

For Villavicencio, who will replace Marcela Arellano in the presidency of the FUT, a mobilization was given to demand the realization of the new Comprehensive Organic Labor Law discussed by the National Assembly and which must guarantee and expand individual and collective rights; and also for the defense of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (IESS), which, he notes, would be hijacked by the mafia, the corrupt and the government of the time.

On the political level, Villavicencio said that as workers’ organizations they are proposing to the legislature that President Lasso should be censured, but that if this does not happen, it is not because of a lack of elements, but because “members of the assembly have sold their conscience and returned it to the Ecuadorian people.” .

The new head of FUT described the fact that the adoption of the new Labor Law does not come to the National Assembly as a parliamentary debt. “The Labor Committee had 180 days to deal with the report for the first hearing. He didn’t do that, he asked for another 180 days, and then another 90 days extension. Approximately two years have passed and the Assembly still wants to resolve the issue for the first debate, when it should be a priority,” he explained.

The theatrical spot attracted the attention of those watching the march, first along Avenida 10 de Agosto and then along Guayaquil Street. Several masked young people, dressed in old clothes and wrapped in black garbage bags, dragged dirty pots and rusty machetes, wanting to show the insecurity and poverty that rule the country.

The political trial of President Guillermo Lasso and the internal elections for the National Assembly come together for political negotiations

For Nelson Erazo, president of the Popular Front, it is clear that the issue of impeachment of the Ecuadorian president in the decision made by the Assembly will have a lot to do with the role played by different social and popular sectors. (…) Now we will force the Assembly to remove an incompetent president like Guillermo Lasso, who has not solved the central problems of the population such as health, education, security and work.

Leader Erazo believes that the political crisis will not necessarily be resolved in the Assembly, but that it will unfold and be defined in the struggle on the streets. Faced with this idea, the People’s Front confirmed that after this May 1, mobilization will continue throughout the country, either through meetings, sessions, marches and, he emphasized, “everything in its power so that the Assembly would confirm the 104 votes that were led to the impeachment of President Lasso, they must now be confirmed for impeachment”.

In the afternoon, those who took part in the march entered the Plaza de San Francisco, in the historic center of Quito. Speeches by union leaders were held there and a symbolic inauguration was held to ratify José Villavicencio as president of the United Front of Workers for the next two years.