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Second Conference of Mercosur Meat Industry Workers

With Carlos Figueroa

Brazil wants to monopolize the region’s meat exports

 

During the Second Conference of Mercosur Meat Industry Workers, recently held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sirel spoke with Carlos Figueroa, institutional relations secretary of the Argentinean Union of Rural Workers and Stevedores (UATRE), the organization that hosted the event.

 

-What did you think of this activity?

-After listening to the various reports presented by fellow meat industry workers from across Mercosur, our assessment is that, as we feared, we are in a very difficult situation, perhaps one of the most complicated situations we’ve ever faced.

 

So it is perfectly clear to us that we must unite and work together towards achieving the basic common goal of preserving jobs. That must be our foremost objective, because if things continue as they’re now, I don’t know what will happen to us.

We view with great concern the vast expanses of land taken up by soybean crops in Argentina, and also the great number of breeding cows that have been slaughtered, as both these phenomena will generate serious problems for employment in rural areas.

 

-In UATRE’s opinion, what are the causes behind this crisis?

-We view with great concern the vast expanses of land taken up by soybean crops in Argentina, and also the great number of breeding cows that have been slaughtered, as both these phenomena will generate serious problems for employment in rural areas. Which is why we are firmly defending lemon production activities in the province of Tucumán, and pear and apple production in the provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén, activities that have a high concentration of workers. Soybean crops, on the other hand, generate practically no jobs.

 

The difference in this sense is enormous: soybean production employs one worker per one thousand hectares, while fruit production creates four jobs per ten hectares. That’s the reason why we want to protect these activities, and we’re fighting for a greater presence of these products in exports, as a way to preserve jobs.

 

-How important is the new Coordinating Body for the Meat Industry?

-It’s very important. We’re seeing how Brazilian companies are buying up meatpacking plants in Argentina and in Uruguay, only to shut them down completely or suspend activities, placing all the workers on temporary unemployment, without giving them any clear indication if and when they plan to resume activities. We think the message is clear: Brazil wants to monopolize meat exports from Mercosur. This seems to be the scenario we’ll have to face from now on.

 

The IUF’s role has been instrumental in these coordination efforts, because it’s an organization that gathers all the trade unions that represent workers in agriculture and the food industry, it maintains an ongoing active presence, and has had the capacity to develop proposals and cooperate whenever it’s been necessary.

 

 

From Montevideo, Carlos Amorín

Rel-UITA

November 9, 2010

 

 

 

 

Photo: Gustavo Villarreal

 

 

 

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  UITA - Secretaría Regional Latinoamericana - Montevideo - Uruguay

Wilson Ferreira Aldunate 1229 / 201 - Tel. (598 2) 900 7473 -  902 1048 -  Fax 903 0905