Gerardo Martinez, UOCRA General Secretary, headed the Bicentennial Assembly organized by North Section Division and carried out at the plant Aguas del Paraná before 5,000 building workers. Such mega plant of hydric infrastructure is where the Potable Water Plant Paraná de las Palmas is built up by AySA and will cover Tigre and Escobar Municipalitites.

Gerardo Martinez was accompanied by Sergio Massa, Mayor of Tigre; Carlos Ben, AySA President; Hugo Ferreyra, UOCRA Organization Secretary; Osvaldo Rodríguez, General Secretary of UOCRA North Section Division and manager of this mega assembly; Malena Galmarini de Massa, Tigre First Councillor and José Luis Cáceres, General Secretary of CGT North Section Division, among other provincial, municipal and union authorities.

Within an amazing frame offered by the thousands of workers in the audience whose chants and singings brought their politically active participation and their sense of belonging to the UOCRA, Gerardo Martinez opened his speech referring to the impact that the global economic crisis has had on the levels of employment and, in this sense, emphasized the scare incidence that this crisis has had in our country, as a result of "a government that from 2003, with Mr. Néstor Kirchner and at present our Mrs. President Cristina Fernandez has put employment policies, the defense of the labor rights and the recovery of the culture of the work in the first place. "

Martinez went on saying: “ the building industry has been and is one of the engines for economy recovery in our country and the building workers are the unique main characters of this process.”

On the other hand, Sergio Massa declared that “we want to see Tigre, Buenos Aires and all Argentina full of yellow hardhats, because the more workers this sector has, the better for the country.” And he added that “UOCRA has demonstrated to be a trade union that not only limits his action in defense of the workers’ salaries, something it really does very well and, but also that has fully understood what is the action of a modern trade union and, as such, it has turned into a true example of integral representation for the workers”.

During this act the two first workers belonging to the North Section Division who had been benefited from the UOCRA Early Retirement Act at 55 years old, were also paid homage.