On May 21, the Union of Tourism, Hotel and Food Service Workers of Argentina (UTHGRA) called a press conference in Buenos Aires to announce a nationwide plan of mobilizations to be staged over the long weekend, with a number of direct and surprise actions. SIREL spoke with Norberto Latorre, secretary of finance at UTHGRA and president of the Global Committee of the IUF’s Hotel, Restaurant, Catering and Tourism Workers Professional Department (HRCT), who expanded on the plan of action.

-Could you describe the context behind the mobilization announced by UTHGRA at the press conference here in Buenos Aires?

-We reached the point we’re in now after a Plenary meeting that gathered the general secretaries of all our divisions –including the Capital and Greater Buenos Aires, La Plata, Mar del Plata, and Cordoba, among others- and the delegates of the Internal Committees of the establishments. There we examined the refusal of the employer sector to grant a wage increase, a position they confirmed on Wednesday, May 20 in a joint government-employer-worker meeting called by the Labor Ministry.

The Plenary meeting’s resolution -announced at the press conference- was to begin staging direct actions throughout the country.

-How was the meeting with the Ministry?

-The meeting was called by the Labor Ministry, and although we sent a proposal beforehand, lowering our demand from a 30% to a 25% wage increase, but maintaining that the raise be part of the salary, management refused to change its position. It’s important that the raise be granted as part of the salary, so that it is part of the basic compensation used to calculate extra pays, which apply depending on the region, the rating of the establishment, and the tasks performed. But the employer sector would not even consider our proposal, and much less was it willing to make counterproposal. They even took us for fools, as they had the gall of asking why they’d been convened, as if they didn’t know we’ve been meeting since April to discuss this!

-What kind of measures will the weekend’s mobilization include?

-That will depend on each establishment and the type of activity, but among the actions planned are street rallies, ‘escraches,’* brief work stoppages called by surprise, and other forms of protest that express our dissatisfaction.

-Will you be covering every region in the country?

-Yes, but we’ll focus on certain spots that have the largest influx of tourists, like Mendoza, Salta, Jujuy, Tucumán, Córdoba (Capital), Villa Carlos Paz, Buenos Aires, Greater Buenos Aires, Mar del Plata, Neuquén, Comodoro Rivadavia, Calafate, Río Gallegos, and Ushuaia. We’re not conducting a national work stoppage yet; we’ll be staging surprise actions in all of these places throughout the long weekend, beginning on Saturday, May 23 and ending Monday, May 25, with the national holiday.** These mobilizations and actions are also aimed at expressing our profound rejection of the violent repression suffered by our trade unionists in early May, when they were rallying peacefully in front of the Business Chamber in Buenos Aires. It won’t be so easy for them to repress us now, when we’ll be mobilizing simultaneously around the country.

-Some measures will begin earlier…

-On Friday, May 22 in public soup houses and hospitals we’ll be working by the book (that is, doing just the minimum required), so that the service there will be noticeably slower, but nobody will be left without a meal. Under no circumstances are we going to neglect our duty as workers towards the most needy, those who are sick or have been hit hard by economic circumstances. It is in these places in particular that we want to make ourselves heard by the institutions’ authorities; we want to make our demands known among the beneficiaries, to make as many people as possible aware of our struggle.

-Are employers still using the excuse of the global crisis to deny the raise?

-There are some who are still arguing that there is a crisis in the industry, when we all know that since 2002 the industry’s companies have been building up a hefty reserve -unprecedented in the country-, which undeniably puts them in a position to grant us the increase we demand. Between 2002 and last year, the activity in the industry practically doubled. More than 50 four-star or five-star hotels are being built right now in various parts of the country, and not in one of these projects has the construction work been suspended. These are all investments by local operators, so it’s clear to us that these companies are not being seriously hit by the global crisis. The sector is not undergoing a recession, there are no mass layoffs, and there aren’t even any plans in that sense. We know that a hotel covers all its costs with only 25 percent of its rooms occupied; and, just to give you an example, in 2008 hotels in average had a general annual occupancy rate of 90 percent. Some were even sold-out over significant periods. A five-star hotel charges somewhere between 300 and more then 1,000 dollars a room… How can they not raise our salaries? What we’re asking for is not outrageous, extreme, or irrational. But the truth is that they want to maintain the same level of profit they’d been having these last few years, without sacrificing any portion of the exceptional income they were raking in.

-How does the raise UTHGRA is asking for compare to inflation?

-Since the last raise we had, which was in June 2008, the real rate of inflation was 28 percent, which means that with this raise we’d be merely maintaining the purchasing power of the workers. We came to this figure through a study that monitored the price of the products that make up the Basic Family Basket, because the official index published by the government’s Statistics Institute is doctored with the aim of reducing the interests the government has to pay the International Monetary Fund to service debts that are tied up with inflation. But the reality is that workers are just not making it to the end of the month.

-How are spirits now among workers?

-They’re very angry. We can see it at the Plenary meetings we’ve had. The workers not only want to continue with mobilizations, they want to step up the struggle. While we know that some employers are willing to reach an agreement, we’ve unfortunately been forced to resort to more forceful actions by the behavior of the employers that have so far determined the sector’s official position.

-You will be assessing the situation next week…

-Starting on Tuesday, May 26, once we’ve completed the mobilizations and actions we have planned for this long weekend, and if employers are still refusing to sit down an negotiate with us seriously, then we’re going to move forward with our Plan of Struggle. We’ve discussed several actions, such as going into a restaurant at the busiest hour and sitting down on the tables without ordering anything; picketing in front of the establishments; staging surprise work stoppages to distort activities; holding escraches; and other, even more direct actions. We’ve reached a point where anything goes. All the workers who were repressed on May 4 are with us, stronger and willing to continue fighting.

-How is the health condition of the injured workers evolving?

-There’s a worker who lost his spleen as a result of the brutal and vicious beating he received, which was totally unwarranted and unjustifiable. Another worker had rubber ammunition extracted from one of his eyes. Luckily he didn’t suffer any permanent damage and he won’t lose his sight in that eye, but he’s still being treated. There are others who were severely beaten who are also still being treated. But in spite of what they suffered, each and every one of them wants to continue in the struggle to achieve our demands.