The company issued a statement in response to the union’s forceful measures during the month of April.
The National Cooperative of Milk Producers (Conaprole) published a statement explaining the reasons why the workers will not see their jobs affected by the investments focused on the modernization of the plants, one of the reasons why this month the Association of Workers and Employees of Conaprole (AOEC) carried out measures of force.
The union conflict began after Conaprole invested in the Rodríguez plant and incorporated new packaging machines, with the capacity to 15,000 liters per hour. This led the company to propose a rescheduling of shifts and ways of working, something the union opposed, as they considered that the changes were made without prior negotiation. Faced with this, they began measures of force that were maintained until April 20, when both parties managed to reach a certain point of agreement.
In the statement, the first topic touched on is the drought and the difficulties that the sector had – and still has – to face. “The producers of our cooperative come from facing one of the worst droughts, with losses of more than 100 million dollars”, highlights the text, citing information from the National Milk Institute (Inale).
In this context, the statement explains, that “a conflict as unfair as it is inexplicable is taking place.” They referred to the investment made, for which the conflict began, in a “new machine for uht packaging, for the supply of the internal market and the possibility of increasing exports, in a more practical and modern container” and that proposes a form of operation with which the packaging company operates throughout the world.
Faced with this, the text explains that investment in this new machinery will not cause job losses and will not affect the wages or working conditions of workers. For their part, they added that “the workers in the UHT sector work in regime of 9 hours from Monday to Friday, with incomes well above the national average” and took advantage of the fact that “despite this, they have very high levels of absenteeism.”
“Will follow open to dialogue productive, mature and constructive and that defends the entire dairy chain”, ends the statement.
Source: Ambito
