The union of National Beer Factories (FNC) announced that they are analyzing possible measures against the closure of the plant in Mines, where they do not rule out mobilizations and even a general strike; Meanwhile, this Monday company executives will meet at the Ministry of Labor.
Last week FNC announced the closure of its plant in Mines due to “competitiveness problems”. Faced with this news, the union spoke out against it and threatened measures that could go as far as a general strike by the workers.
“We had a general assembly in April where we defined that for us it is essential that both plants remain operational, so we are mandated to take all kinds of measures that could even lead to a general strike in our factory,” Fernando Ferreira, union leader, told Canal 10.
According to Ferreira, it is not feasible for the company to absorb the 150 workers at the plant. Mines in the of Montevideo. “The 150 colleagues here in Montevideo There is no chance that they can be integrated into the squad. FNC. The 150 has no place. Today the only expectation they have is to see how they remain on unemployment insurance for a while longer and what the reason for the dismissal will be and in what month it becomes effective,” he explained.
For the moment, this Monday afternoon the company authorities will have a meeting at the headquarters of the Ministry of Labor, where the union hopes to be subsequently called to a meeting where it will be informed of what was proposed by the beverage company.
The company’s approach
From FNC they argued that there were four main factors to move forward with the decision, among them “the high costs of production of Uruguay compared to other countries in the region.”
Another aspect that weighed on the factory’s decision was “the growing import of low-cost cans that reach values that are impossible to match with the current conditions in Uruguay for the national industry.”
Finally, FNC mentioned “the smaller scale of local production and low productivity”, as well as “the tax pressure which is especially distorting in returnable beers”, while warning that there is a idle capacity of more than 50%, making the situation “unsustainable.”
Loss of competitiveness, the great Uruguayan problem
After the FNC news, the Chamber of Industries issued a statement expressing its concern about the loss of competitiveness of the sector in the Uruguay. “The Chamber of Industries of Uruguayhas been warning for many years about the problems that the lack of competitiveness growing and constant, generate in our industries,” says the statement.
In addition, from the camera they communicated with the different presidential candidates to explain their concerns. “We have recently prepared a document for the pre-candidates for the presidency of the Republic, where we concentrate the problems that the sector is going through into six vectors. The first of them and without a doubt the one with the most urgent solution is that of lost competitiveness,” they pointed out.
“Once again we call for reflection and mainly for action by our present authorities, since surely in the coming months we will witness situations of the same magnitude as the one we regret today,” the statement concludes.
Source: Ambito
