–
February 20 marked the beginning of a complex scenario for the Los Angeles trade, when the measure that, two days before, was announced by the authorities of the Ministry of Health, came into force, with the beginning of the quarantine for the Los Angeles commune.
The year 2020 was not without complications, which for many dragged on from the previous year. To this scenario, an even more devastating situation was added for many local merchants, who today desperately see a future that becomes uncertain if measures are not immediately resolved, a situation that led the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce to convene an expanded meeting to discuss proposals to address the impact of the extensive quarantine.
The president of that union, Miguel Pezoa Reyes, said with an energetic tone that his intention is “to exhaust all the instances of meeting and representation that allow us to make visible the consequences that SMEs are facing due to this extreme measure.”
Representatives from various areas of commerce, hardware, furniture, restaurants, higher education parking lots and hairdressers, among others, joined the meeting. In this regard, Miguel Pezoa stressed that “the unions have quite a few proposals, some of which have already been formally sent to the authorities, through different bodies, but we want to say with force that not all the proposals have been heard by them” . By way of example, he compared that the situation that exists in the Metropolitan region is very different from that observed in regions in the context of a pandemic, in his opinion, “totally innocuous quarantines persist in regions, while in communes of the Metropolitan region, with questionable parameters, are barely a month in phase 1. It is an open discrimination. We do not understand what is the criterion of the authority and why the strategies that are applied in our city are not giving any type of result. On the contrary, we have increased the cases and there have been totally adverse effects, such as the increase in informality in all types of sectors, which is detrimental to established SMEs. It is an unfair competition that hits us hard, us and the fiscal coffers ”.
PROPOSALS
At the union meeting, proposals arose to face the contingency, explained the president of the Chamber of Commerce, who indicated that different aspects related to the operation of the trade should be considered, “the need to open the retail trade and establish special restrictions to the large shopping centers and supermarkets, since there tends to be a lack of capacity control, which does not happen in small businesses, where there are already reduced capacities. However, because they are open and we are closed, we are at a complete disadvantage, which cannot continue to happen ”.
In his opinion, other alternatives should be explored, such as vehicular or pedestrian restrictions, “since Los Angeles today is more saturated with vehicles than when we led a normal life and that does not agree at all with the less mobility that a quarantine pursues. We must be able to open the premises and not the other way around, so that people have different shopping alternatives, as it was before, and not all the crowds that we see today outside of some establishments exist ”.
Pezoa pointed out that “the worst example is being given by the State, with public services that have reduced their hours or modality of care, harming people. They take care of their workers, which is logical, but in our streets we see a sad sight with people who stand in long lines for hours outside the Civil Registry and other services. The same happens in notaries and Banco Estado, where it is really unworthy to see people waiting in the street ”.
The union leader called on “the authorities to incorporate SMEs to the list of essential items, including hairdressers, which contribute to people’s hygiene and self-esteem. The latter is also very important in the midst of the terrible rates of mental health that we have registered as a country. It is unusual that they are closed ”.
MOBILIZATIONS
On April 27, hairdressers, hairdressers, barbers and stylists from Los Angeles took to the streets to demonstrate, calling out loud and carrying banners, to be considered an essential activity.
A week after that day, Nelson Rivera, president of the Los Angeles Barbers Union, pointed out that they expect to be received by the provincial governor, just as the mayor and the president of the Chamber of Commerce did at the time.
Rivera affirmed that it is necessary to adopt measures at the moment, “they have been critical months because in our union we have marriages, in which both the mother and the father are dedicated to the activity, being their only income to support their families, through their job. The anguish and despair of being able to work is already entering. We really are essential. “
In parallel, he expressed that it is an activity where it is possible to work in compliance with all health protocols, through the use of a mask, alcohol gel, with care and sanitation between client and client. “The anguish is entering when two and a half months are not working, without receiving income. Many have had to turn over the premises due to the impossibility of paying the rents, ”said the president of the Union of Hairdressers.
