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11 December, 2006
It took a four-month-long struggle, but workers at the Fábrica Neumáticos de Avanzada (NA), a competition-tyre making company in Córdoba, Argentina, finally reached an agreement with their company. Workers were represented by ICEM affiliate Sindicato Único de Trabajadores del Neumático Argentino (SUTNA) throughout the dispute.
As reported in Issue 67 of InBrief, from 16 October, (/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/1991-SUTNA-Rubber-Dispute-in-Argentina-Hardens), trade union representatives and their family members had been threatened, harassed, and intimated after the company, in early August, sacked 25 SUTNA members.
The bitter dispute followed a historic agreement, signed last summer, between SUTNA and the country’s rubber employers’ association, which covers the entire rubber sector. NA refused to go along with the accord, and began discriminating against workers who were SUTNA members.
With the support of SUTNA, workers at NA now have their rights fully recognised. The agreement includes the reinstatement of two dismissed workers, as well as full compensation payments for all workers that were dismissed.
Pedro Wasiejko, General Secretary of SUTNA, welcomes the step forward, but also said that the union “will continue to take action on the accusations of intimidation against workers during the dispute, so that measures can be taken against those responsible for these inadmissible acts.”