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Brazil & Southern Cone - October 2016 (ISSN 1741-4431)

Bachelet unveils budget amid various economic pressures

At the end of September, the Mesa del Sector Público (MDP), which groups 15 public-sector unions, including Chile’s main umbrella union, Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT), staged a 24-hour national strike in demand of a 7.5% public-sector wage increase (far above the government’s initial 2.9% offer). The protest, which comes as the country is gearing up for the 23 October municipal elections [RBS-16-09], took place as President Michelle Bachelet unveiled her government’s proposed national budget for 2017. Indicative of the economic pressures weighing on the unpopular leftist Nueva Mayoría coalition government, which stem in part from the continued fall in international prices of copper (Chile’s main export), the draft budget calls for an increase of just 2.7% in overall government spending compared with the previous year’s budget – the smallest increase for 13 years.

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