Argentina - 2012

Presidential and legislative elections were held on 23 October. Open, simultaneous and mandatory primaries were held for the first time in the history of Argentina. President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was re-elected with 54% of the vote, 38 points ahead of the candidate for the Frente Amplio Progresista (Progressive Broad Front) candidate, Hermes Binner.

The government declared 2011 the “Year of Decent Work, Health and Social Security for Workers” by means of Decree 75/2011. During the year the government pursued four main policy pillars: employment creation, rights at work, the extension of social protect and the promotion of social dialogue social dialogue Discussion and co-operation between the social partners on matters of common interest, such as economic and social policy. Involves participation by the state where tripartism is practice. .

New article: Thanks to the measures adopted in 2011 and in recent years, at least 86% of the population is now covered by the country’s social security systems (both public and private). Similarly, the resumption of tripartite dialogue in the negotiations for the minimum wage led to an average 20% pay rise over the year. However the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed concern in its report on Argentina about the high number of workers still in the informal economy or employed as contract labour, earning lower wages than foreseen in local regulations and excluded from the social security systems.

Reluctance to negotiate in the oil industry: Workers from the Santa Cruz Private Oil and Gas Workers’ Union went on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike in April 2011 to demand better working conditions in the companies in the industry. Workers from the oil companies based in the Argentinian provinces of Río Negro, Neuquén and La Pampa also stopped work in November 2011. They were calling on their companies (including YPF, Repsol, Total and Apache Corporation) to sign a collective agreement introducing pay rises for most of the staff, in response to the high level of inflation, which had reached 20% a year and was seriously affecting their incomes. The oil companies were consistently reluctant to negotiate with the union.

Anti-union practices at IBM Argentina: Workers at IBM complained that the company was trying to prevent the computer workers’ union “Unión Informática”. The workers presented a set of demands to improve their working conditions and to protest at the dismissal of 200 workers. The workers went on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 28 July 2011. They later submitted complaints against the management of the enterprise for threatening dismissals and penalties against those who had taken part in the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike .

Anti-union practices at the Icro Ómnibus Norte SA (Monsa) transport company: The 1,340 workers at the transport company Micro Ómnibus Norte S.A. (Monsa) organised a work stoppage in September after repeated violations of their rights by the company, including the non-payment of allowances, poor occupational health and safety conditions and a lack of recognition recognition The designation by a government agency of a union as the bargaining agent for workers in a given bargaining unit, or acceptance by an employer that its employees can be collectively represented by a union. of their union delegation in its defence of the workers’ interests. On bus line 60 the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike extended into the month of October in protest against attacks on the granddaughter of a delegate taking part in the negotiations, who was threatened and tortured, and told that her granddad would be killed if the workers did not drop their demands.

Eviction from and murder on ancestral land: Christian Ferreyra of the MoCaSe-Vía Campesina National Indigenous Peasant Farmers’ Union was murdered when he tried to resist eviction from the land where he had lived in for all of his 23 years. He was murdered by killers hired by a soya grower from Santa Fé during a dispute over the ownership and distribution of land, which arose against the background of negotiations over the cultivation of ancestral land. The indigenous community had been complaining of attacks by the entrepreneurs for the past two years.

Anti-union practices in chemical companies:

Employees of 28 chemical companies in the Zárate and Campana region went on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike to demand improvement in their pay, the respect of collective agreements, and an end to the dismissals and persecution and the smear campaign against the workers’ organisations by several companies in the industry.

Petrobas responded by suspending its activities at its Zárate plant. However the workers continued their strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike at the other factories. The Ministry of Labour ordered compulsory conciliation conciliation An attempt by a neutral third party, a conciliator, to aid the settling of an industrial dispute by improving communications, offering advice and interpreting issues to bring the disputing parties to a point where they can reconcile their differences. The conciliator does not take as active a role as a mediator or an arbitrator.

See arbitration, mediation . After the negotiations the union remained on a state of alert, ready to mobilise its members.

Collective bargaining proves difficult in soya exporting companies : In the last week of January 2011, workers in Rosario port district (lorry drivers, dockers, builders and security guards), one of the biggest grain terminals in the world, went on a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike that paralysed loading operations. The protest came to an end after compulsory conciliation conciliation An attempt by a neutral third party, a conciliator, to aid the settling of an industrial dispute by improving communications, offering advice and interpreting issues to bring the disputing parties to a point where they can reconcile their differences. The conciliator does not take as active a role as a mediator or an arbitrator.

See arbitration, mediation was imposed. The strikers were calling for better pay, taking into account the fact that Argentina is the leading world export of oils and soya. Protests by dock workers continued throughout the year owing to the impossibility of negotiating effectively to put an end to unequal conditions between workers.

Multinational “Teleperformance” refuses to negotiate:

Workers at the Teleperformance multinational company which provides client services, technical support, telesales and payment collection services, decided to organise one hour stoppages each day in protest at their poor working conditions and management’s refusal to negotiate.

On 7 January the company began to empty its Hipólito Irigoyen offices, asking workers to choose between “voluntary departure or moving to another location”, which resulted in breaking up the organised workers. Subsequently, the company proceeded to dismiss 11 union delegates and activists, although they were later reinstated further to a decision of the internal committee. In April the company dismissed 110 workers for being “unproductive” and hired new staff with no history of trade union involvement. In July the company stopped attending the conciliation conciliation An attempt by a neutral third party, a conciliator, to aid the settling of an industrial dispute by improving communications, offering advice and interpreting issues to bring the disputing parties to a point where they can reconcile their differences. The conciliator does not take as active a role as a mediator or an arbitrator.

See arbitration, mediation meetings organised by the Labour Ministry and in August it unilaterally decreed the suspension of all workers and the closure and liquidation of the company. As a result is was prosecuted for disruption.