In Uruguay, the gas sector held a strike that went from Friday, April 8, the Friday before Tourism Week, until Monday 11 at 12:00, when they resumed activity. The measure was taken in the context of collective bargaining at the last meeting of the union in the Wages Council.
The conflict has to do with the fact that “it does not correspond to the way in which the negotiations are taking place,” said Andrés Guichón, the leader of the Labor Association of Officials of Acodike (one of the most important supergas companies in the country), Andrés Guichón, and assured that his statements “are not being taken into account”, according to the newspaper El País.
What was proposed was a “salary recovery of 4.8%” because, according to Guichón, “it was the salary we lost and we understand that the time to recover it is now. Companies don't understand it that way.”
“We received a proposal that is almost worse than the guidelines of the Executive Branch,” Favio Riveron, president of the Uruguayan Federation of Trade and Service Employees (FUECYS), told Undersado.
In this way, they decided to hold a stoppage and, moreover, not to work overtime until 25 April, when the next Council meeting will take place.
However, sources in the sector assured that there could be a lack of carafes if the situation was not resolved and that was what happened. Last Sunday, April 10, there were already several neighborhoods in Montevideo and Canelones (two of the most populated departments in the country, both to the south) where there was no gas at the points of sale.
The Senator of the National Party, the party to which President Luis Lacalle Pou belongs, Sebastián Da Silva, complained on social media about the consequences of the actions of the gas workers' union in Uruguay, causing thousands of tons of rice to stop harvesting.
“Stocks are not enough to meet demand and this situation may worsen in the next few hours,” anonymous sources told the newspaper El País this Sunday.
Due to the lack of supergas that occurred during the week in Uruguay, Da Silva said that they are “not harvesting three thousand tons of rice per day” due to the lack of gas in the dryers of “cururo plantas”.
“Reason: union measures and distortions of the Rio Gas company” (another important supergas company in Uruguay), commented the nationalist. “All rice must go to the dryer, otherwise the value is 0 because it loses commercial quality,” he said and assured that producers cannot supply themselves because, if the rice cannot be dried, “the threshing has to be stopped,” he told Montevideo Portal.
“Therefore, we are with more than just a stick in the wheel is literally piercing the boat where one sails. The shortage is due to trade union measures, beyond the will of the parties, who are held hostage to third party issues in the middle of the harvest,” said the senator.
Da Silva added that he had already been in contact with the Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining, Omar Paganini, and the National Labour Director, Federico Daverede, who “are closely following this problem” that was described as “complex”.
“We are waiting for the news of a meeting to see which way to go. A union that stops in the middle of the harvest, does not help itself. Losing customers is losing work capacity for their unionized members, something obvious they should assume. We will always be at the side of those who produce and risk to carry out development”, he concluded.
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