Colombia, various sectors reject consolidation of Spanish communications company in the sector

teleSUR English

*Central Workers’ Union rejected the layoffs *The operation constitutes a violation of the law and represents a violation of national sovereignty *Minister of Technologies, Information, and Communications to be called to a political control debate in the congress

Transcript

00:00Also in Colombia, a Spanish communication company consolidates its power in this sector,

00:05a situation rejected by the country's Central Workers Union.

00:11Diego is one of more than 30 workers of Channel One, CMI News program,

00:16who were laid off after the acquisition of that television space

00:19by the Spanish communications company Prisa.

00:21In addition to Diego, more than 180 workers have been left at risk

00:25in what constitutes the largest action of massive layoffs

00:28resulting from this transaction between the concessionaire

00:30that operates Channel One and the Spanish company,

00:33to whom the entire control of the programming grid, contents,

00:36and commercial exploitation was handed over,

00:38where the workers were not taken into account, leaving many of them adrift.

00:46They should have also thought about the people who work there,

00:49the families, the households.

00:51There were more or less 130 of us from CMI.

00:55We are in the diverse, because there are people who could have come out of the situation better,

00:59but others who could not, as in my case.

01:02There are those of us who do not have a job at the moment,

01:05and we have to see what we will do, to see what solution they give us.

01:09But unfortunately, when they make these changes, these contributions,

01:13the giant companies do not look at the employee,

01:16they do not look at the employee's welfare as such.

01:18They care about closing the business, they have their share, they liquidate.

01:22The other people do not matter to them.

01:24They do not care about those people.

01:34The Central Workers' Union rejected the layoffs following this operation,

01:37in which CMI had 32 years of experience,

01:40a formal company on which nearly 100 direct jobs depended

01:44and whose contents are now replaced by the contents of Caracol Radio,

01:47a subsidiary of the Prisa Group in the country.

01:52There should have been an issue of change of employer,

01:55and therefore of employer substitution.

01:58But no, here, the workers are nowhere to be seen by the gentlemen of Caracol Prisa.

02:08But these are not the only irregularities.

02:10According to the same Workers' Unitary Central and some congressmen,

02:13the space occupied by CMI is a public character,

02:16which now cannot be exploited and used by a private without prior bidding,

02:20which constitutes a violation of the law

02:22and which gives rise to the formation of a monopoly of some sectors of communication,

02:27which represents a violation of national sovereignty.

02:35It is pertinent to ask what happened, how the deal was agreed and how it was structured,

02:39since it is an absolutely legal fact

02:41and it should be explained why the Haste Group arrived with altruistic kindness

02:44to save the channel with serious economic difficulties

02:47in a process plagued with opacity in which nothing more and nothing less than the privatization

02:51of a public channel through the backdoor is at stake,

02:54and also without knowing in exchange for what.

03:00In view of these irregular situations,

03:02the Minister of Technologies, Information and Communications, Mauricio Lizcano,

03:07will be called to a political control debate in the Congress of the Republic

03:10in order to explain to the country why he did not make the proper intervention

03:14and control of this operation on a public media in the hands of a private company,

03:18which increases the monopoly of the media in the hands of economic conglomerates in the country.

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