4 August, 2014On Sunday, 3 August, Hugo González Chirico announced the end of his hunger strike but said he will fight on, with the support of workers at the local and international levels.
Jorge Almeida, IndustriALL Global Union Regional Secretary, made an urgent trip to Paraguay on 1-2 August to express solidarity with Hugo González Chirico, who had been on hunger strike for 80 days. Almeida urged Chirico to not endanger his health further and to use other forms of struggle. He noted the deterioration in Chirico’s health and persuaded him to work together in other ways to find solutions to union demands. In those last few hours, Chirico reflected on the option of ending his hunger strike, in the knowledge he would have the continuing support of IndustriALL Global Union and the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA). Víctor Báez, TUCA general secretary also visited the union office in front of the company’s offices in the town of Villa Hayes to convey his support and to try and convince Chirico to end his hunger strike.
The TUCA and IndustriALL are united in their support for the struggle of the ACEPAR workers and have decided to internationalize the struggle in their efforts to persuade the company to return the 33% of shares that belong to the workers and reinstate the workers dismissed in 2010, all members of SITRAC, the union of workers at ACEPAR and affiliated to FETRAMPAR, a union federation affiliated to IndustriALL.
Chirico began his hunger strike on 22 May in defence of the rights of ACEPAR workers and in repudiation of the government, which was supporting the company’s violation of human and labour rights.