Blow to the income of dollars: strike in Senasa will stop agroindustrial exports for 48 hours

The Association of State Workers (ATE) decided to launch a 48-hour strike in the National Agri-Food Health and Quality Service (Senasa), which will paralyze agro-industrial exports for 48 hours, the main item of foreign sales and foreign exchange earnings. of Argentina.

The union action, explained the union secretary, Rodolfo Aguiar, is in response to the threat of cuts of 30% of the agency’s staff. The strike will begin on Tuesday, February 26 and will involve the paralysis of exports and health controls in the country.

“All controls at ports, airports and customs are going to be paralyzed. In addition, inspection will be lifted in all zoophytosanitary barriers in the country,” Aguiar said.. “We have decided to initiate a forceful measure that will have a strong impact on the economy of our country and we are not going to accept that we, the workers, are held responsible for the impact on exports. There are many jobs at risk and we are not going to allow illegal layoffs to take place,” said the union leader.

Aguiar considered it “inadmissible” that the national government intends to “carry out adjustments and personnel cuts in an organization that plays an essential role, has always been self-financing and has also generated million-dollar resources for the State every year.” And he concluded “in the face of labor contracts that expire on March 31 and the threat of massive layoffs in the Public Administration, from ATE we are going to multiply protests in all ministries and organizations in the coming days.”

Beyond the motivations and union explanations, the strike of the phytosanitary control body will impact agroindustrial exports, already hit by the drop in international prices and cuts in production projections.

In this regard, the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange (BCBA) cut the production projection of yellow cereal by 2.5 million tons, to 54 million, in what will be a more “earthly” harvest, despite the fact that the new projection would still represent an increase (in volume, not value, whose increase will be lower, due to lower prices) of 60% compared to the previous campaign, contributing about 20 million tons.

The heat wave that affected a large part of the agricultural area during the end of January and beginning of February was one of the main reasons for this new decrease in the forecasts, hitting the potential yields of corn squarely, to which was added the advance of the illness spiroplasma on the central agricultural area, due to the leafhopper plague that affects the area.

ATE stressed the importance of having a strong and efficient quality control and health service, especially in the face of a policy of opening imports such as the one the national government plans to carry out.

The union statement added: “it is worth remembering that in the days when prices were assumed Javier Mileian intention to dismiss 550 workers under Funvet contracts had already been announced (who signed a service provision contract as monotributistas), as well as all those who joined during 2023.

Furthermore, in a note addressed to the Ministry of Human Capital, in charge of Sandra Pettovellothe union demanded job continuity “for all SENASA workers, regardless of their form of contract”, the “urgent opening of the sectoral joint venture”, a “salary discussion in line with inflation”, the “move to a permanent staff of all those hired”, discuss the nomenclature of functions of the organization and a “financial budget according to the functions” of the organization.

Senasa is in charge of supervising agri-food production and is authorized by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to control the phytosanitary standards necessary to export to other countries. In this function, it grants the necessary certifications for international trade.

“Without these controls there would be no exports since they are the only Argentine body with the power to regulate it,” highlighted the union of state workers. And he warned: “if the zoophytosanitary control barriers are lifted, the sanitary status achieved by Argentina is put at risk, and the fruit fly-free zone could be lost, which would make it difficult to trade products with the United States, considerably increasing the costs of the export. The FMD-free zone would also be lost, so the meat that is marketed would enter the global marketing circuit of countries with FMD, losing the market of countries that buy meat from the non-FMD circuit that pays much more (such as , Japan).

According to ATE, “there is no reason to apply a cut in this sector, since it is self-financing, and even contributed 12 billion pesos to the Argentine State in 2022.”