MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Exporters on high alert as strikes hit Chile’s ports once again

Fruit Exporters Association President Ronald Bowen warned losses could reach 50 million dollars

Stoppages spread across Chile as workers claim they are owed thousands of dollars in compensation agreed to in resolution to strikes last year. Fruit exports in Central Chile and copper shipments in the North have been stalled as workers from several major ports across the country have gone on strike, raising fears the export-oriented economy could see a repeat of last year's strikes which lasted three weeks and cost millions of dollars.

 While Chile’s number one export item, copper, is a non-time sensitive product, fresh fruit producers have been left sweating after one of the country’s most profitable ports and major handler of produce shipments, Puerto San Antonio, joined the ports of Mejillones, Iquique, Antofagasta and Huasco on strike as of Tuesday.

Chilean Fruit Exporters Association (Asosex) President Ronald Bowen told local press that losses could reach 50 million dollars if the strike lasts throughout the week. Bowen said up to 700 hundred containers of fruit were stalled and thousands of producers would be affected.

Conflict has been brewing in ports across Chile over the last few weeks as talks between port workers, private companies and the Labor Ministry have broken down.

The conflict began in the Antofagasta and Coquimbo regions but late Monday night workers from different unions along the country decided to join the work stoppages in solidarity.

Union spokesman Jorge Bustos, representative of workers at major copper handler Puerto Angamo in Mejillones, told The Santiago Times that the port operator Ultramar was attempting to break the bargaining power of workers’ unions.

In San Antonio, located in Valparaíso Region, the problem is directly related to last May’s crippling strikes. In April 2013, workers went back to work after the Labor Ministry agreed to compensate for unpaid lunch breaks between 2005 and 2013.

Bustos told The Santiago Times that most of the promised payments are still yet to be paid out.

By Consuelo Fernanda Laclaustra - The Santiago Times