Rebel union workers strike at Argentine grains port
A group of port workers launched a pay strike at Argentina's biggest grains hub, Rosario, even though labor leaders suspended the measure for 48 hours to keep negotiating, a union official said, Reuters reports.
Labor disruptions are common in Argentina, where double-digit annual inflation fuels steep wage demands. Some strikes last only hours or a few days, and the government intervenes when they drag on long enough to halt key soy and corn exports.
The union representing Rosario port workers said it will hold a news conference on Friday morning to update the press on the status of negotiations.
Thursday's protest kept some workers who maneuver ships up to docks for mooring from carrying out their duties.
It prevented grains vessels from being moored and loaded, although operations were normal for ships already tied up at the ports that account for 80 percent of grain shipments from global food supplier Argentina.
"The protest is affecting the entire mechanism for port arrivals," said Pablo Balmaceda, press secretary for the CGT San Lorenzo labor federation, which had originally called the strike
The umbrella group decided late on Wednesday night to suspend the strike for 48 hours to continue wage talks with companies. But a splinter faction within the federation decided to go ahead with the protest.
"This is being carried out but it's not the CGT, it's part of another group called the Intersindical," Balmaceda said.
San Lorenzo is a busy grains area just north of Rosario where multinational giants like Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus and Glencore. have crushing plants and ports.
B.A. FARMERS ALSO STRIKE
Argentina is the world's top supplier of soyoil and soymeal and one of its biggest exporters of corn and soybeans.
In a separate action, farmers in Argentina's top agricultural province Buenos Aires halted sales of grain and livestock for four days starting on Thursday to protest a planned tax increase.
The protest could spread if provincial legislators vote to raise land taxes. Some growers say the measure could put them out of business.
Provincial senators nonetheless approved the tax increase on Thursday, clearing the way for a vote over the days ahead by the lower house Chamber of Deputies.
"This law would make it impossible for a lot of small and medium sized farms to survive," the Argentine Rural Society, a key farm group, said in a statement. "It's a proposal that goes against the basic right to property."