Chile’s Radio Bio Bio reports, “Employees of Essal (a water and wastewater utility) and consumer organizations criticized the (sale of the state-held shares) of the company with a demonstration in the street (in Osorno, Chile on September 26).”
Radio.UChile adds, “The Confederation of Workers of the Province of Osorno, the CUT of Llanquihue, the Consumer Federation of South FECOSUR, the Workers Unions, and the National Federation Essal Fenatraos together oppose the privatization. …Mauricio Navarrete Soto, president of the CUT in Osorno, noted that ‘after the earthquake, the government sold water companies and others such as Essbio, Andean Water, Esval, and is now preparing to sell Essal. It is noteworthy that these services are being remunicipalized around the world, but today in Chile the deepening privatization, which started in 1998, continues.’ …José Pacheco Sanchez, president of Professional and Technical Union of Essal, detailed the benefits if the state remains with the company and stressed that ‘both workers and users are with the hope that the government changes its mind and not to sell 46 percent of the company… The leaders also say that the selling of the shares has not been a transparent process.”
“With this action, the current government would close the last chapter dealing with the sale of state involvement in water utilities, as announced in late 2010. To date, CORFO (the Chilean Economic Development Agency) has already raised more than 1500 million dollars from the sale of their shares in Aguas Andinas, and Esval Essbío.”
This past summer, the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (which administers the pensions for 178,000 public school teachers, principals and school administrators, and pays pensions to 117,000 retirees) increased its ownership of Chilean private water utilities Essbio and Esval from 51.1 percent and 69.8 percent respectively to 89.5 and 94.2 percent ownership.
There are now concerns that the OTPP may purchase the privatized shares in Essal.
The Council of Canadians has repeatedly said that the pension fund for public school teachers should not be invested in private water utilities.
To read a blog – by Mexico City-based Blue Planet Project organizer Claudia Campero Arena – on a recent protest in Calbuco, Chile against the privatization of Essal, please go to http://canadians.org/blog/?p=11096. On September 28, the Council sent a letter to nearly 700 teachers in Ontario urging them to contact the Ontario Teachers’ Federation, which sits on the OTPP Board, and express their objection to their pension funds being increasingly invested in private water. To read the letter, please go to http://canadians.org/publications/subscribe/enews/2011/OTPP.html. If you are a member of the Ontario Teachers’ Federation, please sign the pledge in support of public water and sanitation services in Chile at www.canadians.org/OTPP-pledge.
To read more about our campaign, go to http://canadians.org/OTPP.
