There will be a shortage of fresh milk in Uruguay due to strikes by trade unions

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Uruguay’s National Cooperative of Milk Producers (Conaprole) said in an internal company communiqué that “the anti-competitive measures” taken by the dairy union for more than 25 days are causing “shortages of byproducts and fresh milk.”

Late Monday, the Federation of Dairy Workers (FTIL) reported that the measures to “aggravate the conflict” will be suspended until Thursday, April 28, Montevideo Portal reports.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Uruguay

What’s the problem? The FTIL said on April 21 that it was in “conflict” with the Chamber of Dairy Industries (CILU) and announced that it would take action starting Monday, April 25, if there was no progress in collective bargaining.

According to Conaprole executives, the company and AOEC started the talks with the intention of analyzing technological updates. In this sense, they pointed out that “in the negotiations, AOEC asked for the equivalent of a 40% wage increase, since these are workers who are well above the labor market and validated in the sector’s “zero round”.”

“Due to the call of the Director of Labor and the Secretary of State of the MTSS, as a result of the conflict that we have developed and the confirmation of the authorities that would untie the knot of discussion in the wage councils, the National Plenum decided on April 28 to suspend the measures to deepen the conflict,” the dairy union said in a statement.

The document distributed by Conaprole within the company said, “Although the Association of Workers and Employees of Conaprole (AOEC) states that it is working according to regulations, the competition-distorting measures mean much more than working according to regulations, as they include work stoppages, unannounced meetings and serious violations of agreed work rules.”

“We proposed to set up a negotiating forum, to make various proposals for economic improvements, and even offered to extend negotiations to all the cooperative’s managers, to create a new category, and to award bonuses for achieving targets. Unfortunately, the union did not accept this and chose the path of confrontation, taking unfounded and harmful measures and not complying with the mechanisms for conflict prevention,” the Board added.

According to the authorities, given the shortage of personnel in the fresh milk packaging sector, they requested the takeover of this sector in accordance with the industry agreement, but this was rejected. “Today, we asked the union guards to repair breaks in fresh milk packaging, but they were repeatedly refused, so we had to send supervisors to make the necessary repairs to ensure the supply of milk to the population,” the statement said.

“Our producers and, above all, the population as a whole have been greatly affected. We will not accept threats, impositions or authoritarianism and therefore strongly indicate that such procedures are not and will not be the way to achieve economic improvement, because that is not the way to build a future. We will continue to focus on a responsible and constructive dialogue that defends the sustainability of the entire dairy chain,” said the country’s largest dairy company.

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