Patricia Chirinos pushes a motion for interpellation against Minister Betssy Chavez

The members of the Aníbal Torres cabinet are still under the spotlight of the Congress. This time it is the turn of the Minister of Labour and Employment Promotion Betssy Chávez who for the past few days has been in the eye of the storm due to the air traffic controllers conducted at Jorge Chavez International Airport. Patricia Chirinos, MP member of the Avanza País bench, is the one who is pushing a motion for interpellation in order to hear the minister's explanations on the crisis that has occurred.

“Regarding the Minister of Labour and Employment Promotion, there are several questions regarding her suitability and impartiality for the exercise of office,” says the document presented on one of the ministers who has shown the greatest loyalty to the Pedro Castillo government since the beginning of her administration and during the crises that she has confronted. The text also highlights questions to Chavez about his academic past following the recent accusation of plagiarism recorded in his academic thesis.

”. .. his links with characters involved in the crime of trafficking in land and money laundering, as well as other questions that call into question his transparency in occupying such a high-profile position” are also used as reasons to question his tenure in office since Pedro Castillo ascended to power. The increase in the minimum living wage is also under question since, according to Congresswoman Patricia Chirinos, “it will have a significant impact on unemployment and informality rates, as well as on the period of inflation that our country is currently experiencing”, an effect that had already been pointed out by several specialists.

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The event that would have motivated the motion for interpellation would be the strike of air traffic controllers, which “affected more than 8,000 passengers, who were stranded in different airports at a time when an economic movement of S/800 million was estimated and the mobilization of more than one million national tourists per week. santa”, says the motion that seeks to be made official.

Betssy Chavez has also been criticized following the declaration of illegality of the aforementioned strike. “The Ministry of Labour does not authorize or prohibit strikes. Strikes are a constitutional right. (...) The strike is communicated for the purposes of the discount”; that is, that the formal requirements of the law on collective labour relations are met.

The Ministry of Labour declared the origin of the communication of the strike so that the Peruvian Corporation of Airports and Commercial Aviation (Corpac) will take precautions so that the operation of the airport is not affected. “It is on Thursday that this assumption of legality is broken because article 82 of the law on collective relations was violated, with other legal assets affected (the right to air transport). This agreement is broken and the Labor portfolio declares the strike illegality,” said Chávez.

Faced with this scenario, Diego Bazán, member of Avanza País, said that there are “sufficient grounds” for his working group to support the measure promoted by his colleague. From the Alliance for Progress, its spokesman, Eduardo Salhuana, assured that he will sign the interpellation motion. “The Torres Cabinet is already leaving, it has shown a clear incompetence” and that “the prime minister no longer has the confidence of citizens,” he told the Lima daily El Comercio. For her part, Congresswoman Ruth Luque said she will review the arguments written in the document.

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