Crews needed to guide ships through the ports of grains powerhouse Argentina will stay off the job until more staff is assigned to work busy docking shifts, a union leader said on Thursday.
The week-old walkout by the dockers has bogged down shipments from the world’s biggest supplier of soyoil, used for cooking and in the booming international biofuels sector. Argentina is also a major global provider of corn and soybeans.
Cargo ships cannot be moored in Argentina without the specialized workers. So dozens of the giant-sized vessels have had to drop anchor at the mouth of the country’s river ways over the last week, waiting for the labor dispute to end.
«The logistics companies don’t want to put more crew members on the job. But there are labor laws that they have to obey,» said union chief Omar Suarez.
«We are not on strike, but neither can we be expected to work 24-hour shifts without sleeping,» he added. «As long as there is a lack of crew on deck, we cannot do our jobs.»
The dispute could further constrict the flow of corn and soy out of Argentina, where crop prospects have already been dented by a drought during the dog days of the Southern Hemisphere summer in December and January.
Farm revenue is important to Argentina’s fiscal health. So port strikes in the country are followed by international grains traders and sovereign bondholders alike.
Grains exporting giants Cargill, Bunge, Molinos Rio de la Plata, Noble and Louis Dreyfus operate in Argentina’s main shipping hub of Rosario.
As global population grows to an estimated 9 billion by 2050, demand for food will nearly double, according to the United Nations. Argentina will be key to meeting that demand despite policy uncertainty and regular labor disruptions as unions push for wage hikes in line with double-digit inflation.
Some labor unions have close ties to President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was easily re-elected last year.
The dockers walked off the job last week just as Argentine growers were getting set to harvest their 2011/12 crops.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald