Terminal Cuenca del Plata (TCP) issued a statement addressed to all its personnel in which it warned about the initiation of the procedure to denounce the current collective agreement. This will occur if operational activities do not resume before this Wednesday, October 8 at 3:00 PM.
The company reported that, for six days, operations at the terminal have been interrupted by measures adopted by the union, which has generated negative consequences in the logistic chain.
According to TCP, this stoppage violates Clause Fifteenth: Conflict Prevention, included in the current bipartite agreement, as well as Clause Seventeenth: Union Peace, by not having respected the prior dialogue process agreed upon between the parties.
Given this scenario, TCP announced that it will activate the denunciation procedure provided for in Clause Sixteenth, which would imply the immediate loss of benefits agreed upon in the agreement, once the collated telegram is sent to the union’s address.
The company detailed that, if the denunciation is finalized, the progress achieved in terms of guaranteed workdays will be reversed. Currently, the majority of workers have 20 guaranteed workdays, while others maintain 13, 15, 18 or even 26, according to their category. These benefits would revert to the status prior to October 31, 2021.
TCP specified that, of the 526 active workers, 38 have 13 guaranteed workdays, 41 have 15, 76 have 18, 163 have 20 and 76 have 26. Furthermore, 132 workers perform under a monthly regime. The company highlighted that all collaborators today have at least 13 guaranteed workdays, far exceeding the standards of the national port system.
Additionally, variable allowances for SC drivers, signaling bonuses, double Sundays, benefits for M&R machinists, the workday band system, allowances for extraordinary tasks, the 10% on meal vouchers, six paid BPS sick days, and the vacation supplement of $15,000 net annually would be lost.
TCP underlined that “the terminal cannot be allowed to be taken hostage,” affecting foreign trade, vessel operations, the work of transporters and producers, as well as the workdays of the employees themselves. For this reason, it urged the personnel to reflect and define their position before the established deadline.
The company reiterated its commitment to competitive working conditions and recalled that the current agreement positions TCP above the standards of the Uruguayan port system. “We have already lived this story and it took years to recover trust,” concluded the statement.
