The workers of the tobacco company Maregroup denounced that, after a work stoppage they carried out last Friday, the company is not letting them go to work, so they cannot collect wages. “We get to the gate and there’s a guard with a list saying who should come in and who shouldn’t. Only non-union members can enter“, said to The Observer union delegate Alejo Piñeiro.
Maregroup SA is a Chinese company located in the free trade zone of Florida and currently has around 50 Uruguayan workers, of which approximately 30 are unionized. The workers had carried out the strike last Friday as a result, they denounce, that the tobacco company is not complying with the collective agreement. But, according to Piñeiro, when they arrived on Monday they found that the company decided not to let them pass without giving them any explanation.
This Tuesday, authorities from the Autonomous Tobacco Union (SAT) appeared at the company to demand explanations. The manager of the company informed them that she was not going to let them pass and that the reason why she did not allow the workers to enter was that, according to social networks, they were going to enter the tobacco company to reoccupy it, Pineiro said. After these explanations, they called a notary public to draw up an act. With this document, they filed complaints with the Ministry of Labor, both at the Florida office and at the Montevideo office, and They wait for a call by the National Directorate of Labor (Dinatra) to start a negotiation.
Piñeiro assures that the confrontation with the company has been going on for a long time due to the growth of the base union. “A month ago he sent us all to unemployment insurance, making an excuse that a machine was broken, which had never been broken before. Things just started to break down when the union began to grow,” he said ironically. “He wanted to starve us to death. In the insurance we received $8,000 and on top of that we are day laborers. If we didn’t go to work, we didn’t get paid“, he assured.
The union does not rule out taking the situation to court if they do not continue to let them work, assured Piñeiro, in addition to demanding that they be paid their wages on Monday and Tuesday. “We came to work. They didn’t want to leave us“, he concluded.
