GAM Workers Continue to Await Severance Payments Amid Ongoing Financial Disputes

Original article: Trabajadores del GAM siguen sin recibir pago de finiquitos

For years, a debt has lingered with approximately 150 construction workers involved in the reconstruction of the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center (GAM), one of the nation’s most iconic cultural projects.

Despite the time that has passed since the work was halted, the workers report that they still have not received payment for their severance or other outstanding labor obligations.

The issue arose when the Spanish construction company ECISA Chile Compañía General de Construcciones S.A, responsible for the project, declared bankruptcy, leaving numerous commitments unfulfilled for the «builders of our Chile» who took part in the project’s execution.

Since then, the workers have pursued various actions and lodged complaints to ensure that the owed amounts are recognized and paid.

The project’s client is the Chilean State, through the Ministry of Public Works (MOP), which has now decided to resume the project by hiring a new construction firm. However, according to the workers, the outstanding labor debt to those who participated in the earlier phase remains unresolved.

The National Inter-Company Construction and Industrial Assembly Workers Union (SINTEC) criticized the government’s response to the situation: “We are being met with the bankruptcy law as if we were dealing with a private client. But we are talking about the State of Chile, which as far as we know has not gone bankrupt and therefore has a responsibility to the workers who made this project possible,” the organization stated.

The affected workers assert that the problem is not only legal but also ethical and political, as they contributed to building a public infrastructure of high cultural value for the nation. For this reason, they demand that the State take extraordinary measures to resolve the outstanding debt and ensure severance payments, preventing the costs of the company’s bankruptcy from being solely transferred onto the workers.

In this context, the union has reiterated its call for intervention by the authorities of the Ministry of Public Works and other state institutions to seek an administrative or legislative solution that would enable the settlement of this historical debt with the project’s workers.

Meanwhile, the nearly 150 affected workers continue to wait for a concrete response and do not rule out mobilization for their labor rights, citing arguments that may apply to private entities but should not govern the State of Chile’s obligations to its workers.

El Ciudadano