BUENOS AIRES: Agricultural exports, including the pear and apple that could finally be shipped to Brazil after the lifting of the ban, were stopped until Thursday 16 because of a 10-day strike launched by the Association of State Workers (ATE) of the National Health Service and Food Quality (Senasa).
The strike started and it is affecting shipments abroad as well as inter-jurisdictional transfers of agricultural and food producers, since the agency is responsible for ensuring the safety of food shipped across the country.
Movements of products from farms to markets, from Hub markets to cold storage facilities, the operation of refrigerators, phytosanitary control in different regions, checkpoints in the roads and at the airports are among the activities affected by the strike.
Additionally, trade will also be affected between Friday 10 and Sunday 12, and between Thursday 16 and Sunday 19 by the strike announced by Customs workers, who are demanding the 27.8% wage increases ordered by the Government in May for the UPCN staff be extended.
ATE-Senasa blamed the extensive strike on the authorities of the state body, chaired by Diana Guillen, because they hadn’t tried to solve any of the claims made by workers, even when the compulsory conciliation issued by the Ministry of Labour in late May was in force, when the union was on strike for 96 hours.
Additionally, ATE-Senasa rejected the attempt by the “Ministry of Labour to re-impose compulsory arbitration when all terms expired. It is unfair, it is not valid because it is issued again for the same conflict,” the union stated when ratifying the strike until the end of Wednesday 15.
Besides demanding a 40% wage increase, ATE-Senasa demanded equal pay for Senasa agents that carry out similar tasks to agents in other agencies (such as Customs, AFIP, Migration, INTA), despite being permanent staff; additional recognition because of an unfavorable area, additional payments per function to the workers hired under Article 9, and the implementation of a time schedule for the workers at the borders.
The producers of fruit from Rio Negro Valley were the first to publicly express concern about the extensive strike, which, after three months of the export ban imposed on pears and apples by Brazil, were getting ready to normalize shipments of these fruits so as to revert the strong crisis in the regional economy.
Argentina’s Chamber of Integrated Fruit Growers (CAFI) stressed: “This virtual standstill in exports aggravates the current bleak picture of the apple and pear production and exporting sector in a year when exports have decreased by more than 120,000 tons.” They also stated that, since they were unable to export their products, they were losing 1,500 tons of fruit every day of the strike.
