Unionized workers of the Buquebus company are mobilizing and demanding the restoration of days off and work shifts of 16:00 or 18:00 hours. They are facing a company that has a clean face with “ecological” ships, a good international reputation and a yellow union (UTT), which supports everything the employers say.
In a difficult and fragile situation, the workers of Buquebus (Los Cipreses SA) “go to war with a fork”. Their greatest strength lies in their membership in Suntma (Union of Sea Workers and Related Workers).
They have been in talks with the company for about seven months. This week, specifically on Tuesday, August 6, a pre-conflict agreement was signed at the Salary Council and the company had 48 hours to respond to the workers’ demands. “After that, they have five more days and the conflict is recorded. The parties are released,” the union told EL ECO. To date, there has been no response.
The minutes
As we said, at the National Directorate of Labor (Dinatra), they met with lawyers Cecilia Siqueira and Ma. Noel Llugain on behalf of the Ministry, Pablo Pirez and Sergio Colo and on behalf of the company, lawyer Nicolás Scarela.
In the said minutes, “the workers state that this step was reached after several meetings and months of raising concerns to the company and DINATRA, about the breaks in the current regime, because they understand that the accumulation of fatigue compromises the safety of the workers and of the vessel itself. All this without prejudice to the interest of the workers to advance in a schedule of recovery of the salary lost in the last collective agreement.”
“In this situation, the workers are requesting that the conflict prevention clause established in the Wage Council Agreement be implemented.”
The claims
The workers are demanding a reduction in working hours and more breaks: “We need to get back two days off, because we generated six days off and we gave up four when the agreement was signed in 2019. We are demanding that two days be returned to us.”
They also argue that a schedule should be set for the salary recovery that was already promised “when it was taken out five years ago.” They also demand “that the ship schedules be respected, because sometimes they exceed the workdays, and that means that we work 16, 17 or 18 hours.” This is regulated within the framework of a law from 30 years ago, when ships took 14 hours to make the crossing, and they were not even passenger ships. “Today you handle two or three thousand people and you don’t have enough, you don’t have enough…”
It should be remembered that in 2019, under threats of dismissal of more than 120 workers, they accepted a 10% salary reduction, which was not returned during the years of economic prosperity and good productivity. For this reason, the workers have currently requested the intervention of the Salary Council, which will act as mediator in the dispute. They hope to reach an agreement.
