Trapped on two fronts. This is how the Buenos Aires dockworkers feel on being abandoned by Néstor Kirchner’s government and suffering the harassment of the British multinational P&O Ports. The Government asserts that they cannot mediate in the conflict between the SUTAP Union and the multinational, which has gradually taken control of the three main Buenos Aires terminals and been responsible for deteriorating working conditions. The last straw was the expulsion of the union representative, Dardo Viani. The workers have announced a new blockage in the terminal during the coming week.
Although the date has not been finalised, the decision taken by the Argentine dockworkers is a firm one. Neither the Government nor the company has given sufficient guarantees to break the deadlock in the conflict, which has been going on now for six months. The issues in dispute are various:
1. - The situation of Dardo Viani. Expelled from his place of work for the mere fact of representing a union, his personal situation is a clear example of the working regime faced by the Buenos Aires dockworkers.
2. - The legalisation of the union. The Carlos Menem Government, which governed Argentina between 1990 and 2000, ordered the banning of the SUTAP union in 1993, a decision that allowed him to remove the union leaders (expelled en masse from the port) and privatise the terminals. Since then, SUTAP has demanded the reinstatement of their legal right to operate as a union.
3. - The concentration of company ownership. The workers have also denounced the concentration of the three terminals in the hands of a single company, the British company P&O Ports. This situation violates the most basic rules of free competition, in clear contradiction of the privatisation process implemented by the Argentinean Government.
4. - The Human Resources managing director, Siro de Martini. Most outrageously, P&O has kept in place as managing director of Human Resources a person who held the position of judge during the cruel dictatorship of the generals, which devastated Argentina between 1977 and 1983.
Union representatives expelled, unions banned, the imposition of company monopolies… the port of Buenos Aires is facing a decisive moment and it seems that only the dockworkers are prepared to defend it. In this unequal struggle, however, the Argentinean dockworkers are not alone, as they are supported by the IDC (International Dockworkers Council), an organisation that brings together over 60, 000 dockworkers worldwide. Next week, when the Argentinean workers cut off access to the terminals in protest at their situation, they will not be alone. The whole of the IDC will be there.
