Following an agreement with the national government, controls at border crossings, ports and cargo areas in Chile will resume normal operations on Thursday and Friday.
Workers of the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG) They decided to suspend the strike called for this Thursday and Friday, after accepting the Government's proposal to their labor demands.
Officials evaluated the proposal in local assemblies on Wednesday (13.09.17) and agreed to sign, as well as to begin the construction of the new SAG plant, and the transfer of permanent fees to the contractor, according to the Afsag statement.
The negotiations halted a strike aimed at reducing the performance of forestry slaughterhouses, ports and loading areas.
SAG UNION WILL SIGN NEW PROPOSAL FOR AGREEMENT PROTOCOL WITH THE GOVERNMENT AND WILL ABORT MOBILIZATION ON SEPTEMBER 14 AND 15, 2017
The National Board of AFSAG, after making a national call to all regions so that this Wednesday, September 13, the government proposal to their demands would be evaluated in local Assemblies, and having the result of this democratic exercise, has resolved to sign the Protocol proposed by the Government, and begin the process of its implementation as soon as possible with the milestones related to the beginning of the construction of the new SAG plant, and the process of transferring the permanent Fees to the contractor.
It is important to note that we have approved the proposal with great effort and misgivings, as there is still a long way to go and unresolved demands, but at least we have reopened a path that was not wanted to be acknowledged: the debt that the State has with honorary officials.
In this process of labor demands, we have also been left with a lack of trust in the SAG authorities, since their threatening behavior has not been up to the institutional challenges, nor have we seen a real concern for the development of the people who work at the SAG.
Worse still, the abandonment of their role of safeguarding plant and animal health has been evident, based on the various instructions to replace strikebreakers, without any training, certification and inspection work. Here a substantial question arises for the Chilean forestry and agricultural export sector:
Are these authorities the ones that foreign markets should trust?
Notwithstanding the above, SAG workers will continue to not give up on the institutional strengthening of the Service, to which task AFSAG will fully dedicate itself through the construction of the New SAG Plant, which is part of the pending institutional strengthening challenges of the State of Chile.
We would like to congratulate the unity that characterized this part of the process and the need to continue building unity of action among all the workers of the Service to achieve improved labor rights for all.
Finally, we know that we still have many tasks and demands to resolve, and to do so we need to assess what has been achieved and organize the consolidation of what has been achieved, united and democratically debating the agenda of demands of SAG officials.
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