More than 200 port workers from the country gathered in San Antonio to finalize the formation of the new Confederación Unión Portuaria de Chile, a trade union organization that strengthened its structure to address the different issues they have ahead.
Juan Quezada, presidential secretary of the Confederación Unión Portuaria de Chile, stated that “we were able to bring together the largest port terminals in the country and the regions to fulfill a long-held desire, to give our organization Legal Status to better represent the stevedores.”
Regarding the challenges facing the organization, Quezada maintained that “we have to carry forward the proposals of the workers, both casual and contracted; a port law that truly protects our sector and to address our own issues. We must uphold the name of the worker and of port work.”
“The call is to move forward, regardless of the government in power. We must seek the best for our sector, as the country is in debt with us; a port law should have already been in place, and we are going to push for it,” emphasized the presidential secretary.
Patricio Fredes, president of the Federación de Trabajadores Portuarios San Antonio Terminal Internacional (Fetraporsati), indicated that “we are starting this confederation, we had elections and it has already begun with the new board.”
“The interest we seek is to continue along the work path we had as Unión Portuaria de Chile, since most of us are the same people from there. The change in structure is moving from being a group of brothers, comrades, and leaders, to now having formality, by being a confederation, by being a Legal organization and that obliges us to proceed with legal matters in a different way. The relationship, both with the Chilean State and with the port companies, is going to become different in the form of dialogue,” explained Fredes.
Regarding the participation of stevedores from different facilities across the country, the union leader pointed out that “the view from the workers is that there will always be healthy competition between San Antonio, Valparaíso, and the ports of the Bio Bio, but that is due to a labor issue. From the workers’ perspective, competition takes a back seat; here, we see each other as brothers and we want the same realities being experienced in the north to be in the center and in the south. The good things, we port workers copy, and the bad things we will discard.”
Likewise, the leader valued the support to develop the instance and commented that “when we presented to the port company (EPSA) this idea that we needed to host more than 200 leaders here in San Antonio, from the beginning they showed collaboration, they have always been willing to cooperate; today, EPSA has been a part of it, helping us with the logistics of hosting all the leaders from the north and south who traveled. San Antonio Terminal Internacional and Panul also supported us.”
“We are going to advance on our short-term roadmap, there is a political agenda with President Boric and the commitment he made publicly, to advance our port law which is of interest to 99% of port workers at the country level; also, as a city we have issues to continue addressing as citizens of the Port of San Antonio; the end of concessions… we have a lot of work, so we are going to be committed,” emphasized Fredes, regarding the work ahead for the new confederation.
