25 June, 2009280 Sidelpa workers are in permanent assembly after Gerdau announced the closure of the company, located in Cali. The IMF Regional Office in Latin America and the Caribbean calls on trade unions to show solidarity with their colleagues.
COLOMBIA: A shareholders meeting of Siderúrgica del Pacífico (Sidelpa), owned by the Gerdau Group, which acquired Sidelpa and Diaco in 2005, has decided to stop production and wind up the company, directly or indirectly leaving around 400 workers without jobs.
The company said the closure was due to the world financial crisis (variations in world demand for steel) and the shutdown of a furnace at the steelworks by the government environmental authority, Corporación Autónoma del Valle del Cauca, which ordered a halt to production on June 2, 2009 because of air pollution.
Immediately after the company announced the news, the 280 directly employed workers declared themselves in permanent assembly, according to the union (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Siderúrgica del Pacífico). Edgar Perea, union vice president, told the media that the company had presented a voluntary redundancy plan but added that "we did not accept the plan because what we want to do is work".
These were not the only workers to lose their jobs. More than 150 contract workers and 200 workers at Diaco, Cali, which processes Sidelpa products, are also now unemployed, said Sintrametal, to which the union is affiliated.
Edward Portilla, Sintrametal's national vice president, explained that the company wants "to get rid of us. It dismissed about 200 workers in November and December and then implemented a compulsory redundancy programme. Then came the CVC order, which the company used as an excuse."
Given the seriousness of the situation, which leaves 400 families without an income, the IMF Regional Office calls on its affiliates to show solidarity with the Sidelpa workers' fight to keep their jobs.