Argentina's national library lay-offs cause 'fainting' and 'tears of outrage'

[Judi Lynn]

Argentina's national library lay-offs cause 'fainting' and 'tears of outrage'

240 library employees, around a quarter of the workforce, have lost their jobs at the Biblioteca Nacional in Buenos Aires, in a move criticised by free speech organisations

Alison Flood
Thursday 31 March 2016 10.48 EDT

Mass lay-offs at the national library in Argentina, where 240 employees lost their jobs last week, have been slammed by intellectuals and free speech organisations.

The cuts at the Biblioteca Nacional, once run by Jorge Luis Borges, were announced last Tuesday to “tears and cries of outrage”, according to a report in La Nacion, which said that staff had been phoned by authorities throughout the day to be given the news, which caused “fainting and nervous breakdowns”. They stem from new president Mauricio Macri’s government, which has already fired thousands of public sector workers as part of cost-cutting measures.

The job cuts amount to around a quarter of the library’s staff, according to the Buenos Aires Herald. The cuts were blamed by ministry of culture on the “disproportionate growth” in the number of employees at the library under its last director Horacio González, said La Nacion. According to a statement, in 2005 there were 306 workers at the library, compared to 1,048 now.

But María Pia López, ex-director of the Museum of Books and Language at the National Library, said the increase in staff related to the expansion in the library’s operations, including the creation of a digital library and a book museum. “The lay-offs affect the operations and in some cases, make them impossible,” she said.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/31/argentina-biblioteca-nacional-staff-laid-off-free-speech-organisations-outraged

[COLGATE4]

1. Heavens forbid that a new government facing economic

headwinds would try and rationalize the National Library's workforce, a workforce which balooned 242% under the Kirchner governments (from 306 workers in 2005 to 1,048 today) and the criticism leveled at this seems to boil down to the fact that thesew layoffs caused "tears of outrage and fainting". I suppose that, had I been one of the 743 newly-essential employees, I would have had tears of outrage, too. Jobs like that aren't easy to find.

[MisterP]

2. heck, Borges got purged the same way under Peron