Néstor Astudillo, president of Sidor, again promised to apply a salary increase and improve the working conditions of the party members as long as the protests dissipate
Text: Francesca Diaz / Mail of the Caroni
After issuing seven precautionary dismissal request measures through the Labor Inspectorate, the Néstor Astudillo administration met with the workers in the Billets area and agreed to rescind the dismissal requests, reactivate the employees threatened with dismissal and he promised, once again, to increase the salary.
After having issued seven requests for dismissal on Thursday at the Labor Inspectorate, Astudillo appeared at the company on Friday, June 24 – as was customary – with agents of the National Guard and a prosecutor in order to negotiate the strike of the strike in exchange for the reactivation of the plant, which remained partially paralyzed due to disagreement with the intimidation measures carried out by the board, among which there was a diversion of the transport fleet, according to the workers.
* Read: Wage breaches lead to a new strike at the Sidor steel mill
Sidor’s negotiation
Testimonies of active employees indicate that the negotiation was made with the workers of the Billets area, which left members of other crews dissatisfied.
The consensus to end the strike included annulling the precautionary measures, activating the colleagues threatened with dismissal, applying the promised increase of 186%, paying the retroactive payment for the previous fortnight based on the increase in the stipend, and paying the vacations requested for the workers. months of August and July.
After the development of this meeting, which some workers classified as “influenced by labor terror”, the Billet area decided to return to work at 5:00 on Saturday.
Intimidation and coercive measures
«We are not going to allow more fuss in this company. We come from a debacle, from having a company stopped for more than four years, we come from having absolutely nothing and miserable salaries that the economic war destroyed (…) Where were those who are now inciting the stoppages when nobody wanted to come here ?», settled the president of the company through a statement issued to the workers.
This statement refers to the fact that those threatened with dismissal are those whom the directive considered “leaders” of the stoppage; In turn, he accuses them of putting the company’s production process at risk and requested a precautionary measure to dismiss them from their jobs.
Said measure does not have the requirements established in article 423 of the Organic Law of Labor, the Worker and the Workers that establishes the characteristics of violence, risk to the life of other workers or threats to the good works of the company as requirements to apply to this legal figure.
Sidor’s “Intimidation Measures”
“The dismissal letters were intimidation measures,” said one of the workers who preferred to remain anonymous.
It is not the first time that the workers accuse Astudillo of using coercive mechanisms to raise protests, earlier this week he made an appearance in the Pellas area with agents of the National Guard and a prosecutor to force the workers to reactivate the production and, he asserted, that he would deliver appointments in the Prosecutor’s Office to a total of 50 employees due to the strike.
The Way of the Cross every fortnight
Since Friday, June 17, party members have been on a sit-down strike because, during the first fortnight of the current month, the increase of almost 200% promised by the presidency was not made effective.
In addition, some workers asserted that they received 400 bolívares less than in the second half of May. The directive also promised to increase the calculation of annual vacations, however, days later it confirmed that they could no longer request vacations for the remainder of the year.
Post Views:
210
