LOSSES OF US $ 150 MILLION IN FOUR DAYS OF UNION CONFLICT.

The maritime – river sector suffers situations of total unemployment due to the claims of different unions that demand its inclusion with priority in the Covid-19 vaccination plan.

The Navigation Center warned about the high union conflict in the maritime, river and port sector. The same, they stressed, does not originate in a labor conflict between unions and companies but in “a structural problem of vaccine shortage that requires a comprehensive solution, which must be prosecuted through the Ministry of Health of the Nation.”

The situation generated the non-compliance of hundreds of import and export operations through the country’s ports, affecting approximately 465 ships that were left waiting at the dock, or anchored in our waterways or waiting areas; and in other cases, even having to cancel calls and operate in Montevideo or ports in southern Brazil, to the detriment of all Argentines (workers and companies).

Among the vessels that were unable to complete their operations, there are many that transport essential cargoes for the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic and other transport of hydrocarbons and derivatives.

“We understand the need of all workers, but we emphasize that the measures adopted are not adequate and generate irreparable damage. In just four days of unemployment, there have been losses in currency of approximately US $ 150 million in delays; extra costs for our exports and imports -those that are finally absorbed by our producers and consumers-; and loss of direct income from trailer services, pilotage, mooring, waterway and others, which stopped entering national companies “, the Center highlighted of Navigation in a statement.

The entity added: “The reiteration of these facts reveals us to the world as an unpredictable and unreliable country to make investments and increases the costs of our foreign trade, with losses of activity and competitiveness for national production and jobs. ; and also for the National State and the provinces, which see compromised the development of their ports and the income of millionaire figures, in foreign currency “.

For this reason, the Navigation Center warns that it is “necessary for the authorities to intervene in the present situation, in order to avoid the persistence of the conflict with new strikes in the future and thereby guarantee the continuity of the flow of foreign trade. Argentine, an activity declared as essential in the framework of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic and fundamental support of the national economy and the work of all Argentines that we need so much to take care of to get ahead in these times of pressing crisis”.