The path of a Buquebus worker from December 2022 and early 2023, according to what she indicates, began when she was harassed by a manager on the Don Francisco ship. Then, persecuted and affected at work until she broke out and filed a complaint. She was already psychologically ill, so she went to the doctor. The union managed to get her transferred and when her situation was becoming regularized, Juan Carlos López Mena saw her and gave the order to fire her, according to what was told to EL ECO.
This series of events has led to a meeting being held next Thursday, November 28, at the National Directorate of Labor (Dinatra) between representatives of the company and the port union that represents the worker. This was detailed to EL ECO by Pablo Pírez, general secretary of the Single National Union of the Sea and Related Workers (Suntma), of the merchant sector.
The union representative said that the harassment of the worker began at the end of 2022, when work began to be regularized after the Covid 19 pandemic. “She was not a member of our union and worked on the Don Francisco ship. There was behavior on the part of one of the managers that made the relationship very bad, including gender violence, inappropriate issues, slightly off-color behavior, in addition to workplace harassment, which was heavy.”
In this context, the worker was very alone, “she fell into depression, anxieties that caused the need for continuous medical leaves.” It was all due to “his emotional state and mental health, until at one point he got excited, couldn’t take it anymore and reported the situation he was experiencing to the company.”
After a few days, the company did not take any measures and “they told her that if she needed more days, there was no problem and they even appointed her as a psychologist, more than anything to keep her a little controlled and quiet at that moment.” .
When the official saw that the complaint she had made in the company itself had no action, “she turned to a lawyer and she advised her to talk to the union, which is us. There he approached the union, he presented the situation to us, full of anguish, with tremendous anguish, this was almost two years ago.”
The union’s measures
“We immediately responded that we were going to talk to the company, to have a bilateral meeting, and we advised her to file a complaint with the General Labor Inspection anyway, that we would accompany her, but the complaints have to be personal.”
From there the company began an administrative investigation, they gave some talks to the staff about harassment, gender behaviors and workshops, but “the colleague was in that situation of continuous medical leave, with health problems. When she is finally discharged from the treatments, the doctors clear her to go to work. We told the company that she felt strong, that she wanted to work, that she also needed to work, but that we wanted to know what the investigation that the company was carrying out was about and also that they had to reinstate her but that it would not be in a place hostile, that she was separated from the people she had denounced,” says Piriz.
“There a solution was found, since she had already spent a long time without working, the solution was found to put her on the other shift, we spoke with the manager and we spoke with the personal manager, who at first received her well and They gave support, even she commented on it, grateful because both the manager and the personal manager had behaved well.”
What was not expected
Now, after a certain time, which is necessary to be able to take measures against a worker after having health insurance, they send her to unemployment insurance “and they contact us to explain that it is actually a normal measure within the company.” In low season, rotate the staff because they don’t need so many people. In order not to disconnect, what they do is make a rotation in the unemployment insurance. It caught our attention, the worker too, but well, we found out and she was not the only person who was being sent to unemployment insurance. So we initially accessed that system.
But then, in the second month, which was when they had agreed that she would rotate, they sent her for a third and fourth month. There we summoned the company and asked what was happening. To which they tell us that they were buying time because in reality López Mena had seen her on board and had said that he no longer wanted her in the company. In other words, she wanted her fired. And in order not to do it immediately, the middle managers, because they knew a little about the aggressiveness of the issue, tried to kick it forward.”
Thus the union mobilized. “We told ourselves: this situation must be made transparent, because we consider it to be an unjustified and abusive dismissal. In addition, by then there was already a report from the Labor Inspection favorable to the worker in the investigation carried out by the Ministry. The company appealed, presented as an appeal for that decision to be reviewed. What they inform us as the reason for the dismissal is that López Mena did not love her anymore, for no other reason.”
The current situation
The worker’s world became very difficult because she found out about the dismissal with her mother hospitalized and three more days passed and she died. “The situation is complex. In reality, we are waiting a little longer to have direct contact with her on the subject, to see how we continue with this. In principle, what we are doing is a public complaint and on the 28th, I think it is Thursday the 28th, the company is summoned to the ministry because we want them to explain the scope of these measures, the reasons and the scope of the measures they took.
Finally, Pírez expressed: “Two or three possible paths open up. One would be a restitution remedy, which is a judicial remedy, like an amparo remedy. The other thing would be to negotiate with the company without judicial means, the incorporation of the worker. And the other, the possibility of taking measures trying to protect the worker’s source of work. That is the range of possibilities that we would have from that meeting on the 28th, where Dinatra will become aware of this, of the work she did, because we have the documentation from the labor inspection about her complaint.”
