Peru to reactivate, but only the privileged

Throughout this process of managing the pandemic crisis, we have also tried, from our positions, to be as aware as possible and to collaborate with the measures of the Peruvian Executive.

As entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry, we take every precaution to protect our consumers. Complementary sanitary control mechanisms were established, existing awareness campaigns were launched, etc.

As Peruvians, we understood that the course should be one; get out of this situation and push the car in the same direction, everyone. We closed our doors on March 15, but we mostly met our workers at the end of the month, even though we only had 50% of the projected income. We go to great lengths to keep moving forward, honoring rent and utility payments, even without income. This, without going into details, is already a very big effort.

But gradually we have been receiving, as a reward, the government's indifference. First with a job position in which it is intended that we continue to pay wages and social benefits without having income. At this point, it seems that the Minister of Labor considers that we have some source of unlimited resources, from which we will be able to draw indiscriminately.

Meanwhile, there is a double discourse regarding the worker. On the one hand, it is asked not to extinguish the employment relationship, but on the other hand, there are no valid alternatives for this to be possible. Entrepreneurs are called upon to make a sacrifice, which is currently a leap in the dark. The Labor Sector shows that it lives completely removed from reality.

Rounding out the unfortunate performance in this field, the publication of the Reactiva Peru Regulation that was published in the Official Gazette today, April 13, expressly excludes from the possibility of accessing some salvage credit to the casino and machine games industry slot machines, placing it on a list of activities of negative social perception, along with prostitution and arms manufacturing and trade. In other words, the State has just shouted out loud that it is not interested in the well-being or labor rights of the more than 80,000 families who live formally and legally in this industry.

Many of the people who work in our industry are single mothers, who make up a segment of the country's vulnerable population. We provide them with decent wages and social benefits for themselves and their children, but this does not seem to be of importance to this State.

It has just slapped the entrepreneurs who with effort invest and reinvest in the country, generating jobs and a slightly lower tax contribution to fishing, for example, and much higher than the tax on financial transactions.

The Government of Peru, which for months has proclaimed the creed and raised the flag of inclusion, tolerance and the fight against all kinds of discrimination, has just acted exactly contrary to all these principles, in a probably unconstitutional way, as well. It seems that for the current management the labor rights of all Peruvians are not the same.

It is not possible that, in a time of unprecedented global crisis, where the main concern is not to break the payment chain, one has such a discriminating and little responsible attitude. How are these 80,000 families expected to survive in the crisis? Will they continue to absurdly ask employers to find the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow so they can share some money with their workers?

It is paradoxical and almost surreal to listen to the President of the country asking us for unity and support among all, when they have just turned their backs on us in the most offensive way possible. It is regrettable to note how certain flaws and stigmas continue to be present at government levels, accompanied by some incomprehensible decisions that punish some and privilege others.

I sincerely vote because this intransigent, discriminatory and offensive conduct of the Executive, which punishes the formality of a fully established and 100% taxpaying business, regulated like none, changes for the benefit of the 80,000 families who live from it and contribute to formal employment.