(qCOSTARICA) Get ready for another (not) fun week in Costa Rica, more particularly in San Jose, where protests are expected wreak more than usual traffic havoc.
Announced is a one day strike by workers of the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) for Monday, July 27, protesting the privatization and “insults” for the publication of gross salaries, “ataques salariales” in the words of the ICE union.
Fabio Chaves, head of the Frente Interno de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras del ICE (FIT), says the workers will gather in front of the ICE building in La Sabana at 10:00am, expecting more 10,000 people to march to the Legislative Assembly building on the other side of downtown, through Paseo Colon and Avenida Segunda.
ICE workers have taken to the streets on many occasions, to protest something or other, starting way back in 2000 with the “Combo”, against the Miguel Angel Rodriguez administration (1998-2002) to privatize the state company. That was the first ever mass protest on the streets of San Jose.
Whatever their beef, we will all pay for it, with massive congestion expected on the autopista General Cañas (main route to and from the airport), the Circunvalacion (ring road) and Ruta 27.
If you don’t need to be in San José Monday, don’t. If you can, postpone any medical or business appointments.
Then there are the “porteadores” (the informal or gypsy cabs).
This week talks between the leaders of taxi drivers and the government broke down. Organizers have vowed to take to the streets again, saying the government is forcing them to.
If they do, like in past occasions thousands of drivers and their cars will getting around major areas like downtown, the airport and Zapote, around Casa Presidencial (government house), a nightmare. The Q will keep you posted.
And then there is the walk to Cartago. Although the masses will be making the trek to the Viejo Metropolis by the end of the week, August 1 and 2, many “romeros” will be out, night and day.
Traffic controls on the main road to Cartago have already begun, meaning some lanes will be closed, leading to some road closures as well as the August 2 date approaches.
With the current PAC Government in Costa Rica, my archived blog article of February 14, 2014, entitled, “The Unions Smell Blood”, couldn’t have been a more accurate article of foreshadowing, given the current circumstances of the rise of Union power in Costa Rica.
I’m wondering if the ICE strike may backfire on the union. Now that some of the employees’ bloated salaries are public knowledge, it’s got to be tough for even leftists to sympathize.