Dairy industry: a strategic sector
A Conference to realize plans
and to define objectives
The 3rd International Conference of the Dairy Division of the IUF is taking place in the city of Sunchales, Santa Fe, from Tuesday 18th to Thursday 20th, hosted by the Dairy Industry Workers’ Association of Argentina (Atilra). Delegations from sixteen countries will be attending. During this event, Atilra has also opened a Technological Education Center (CET) oriented at providing training courses for the dairy industry workers and the whole community from that region.
A workers’ union in the community
Atilra’s General Secretary Héctor Ponce, and also Chairman of the International Division of the IUF’s Dairy Sector, started the Conference by commenting on the great challenge that the responsibility of organizing such an important event has meant for the Union, «during which I am sure that we will be confirming plans for the short, medium and long terms.»
Atilra’s General Secretary emphasized that the Union’s actions, besides considering the needs of the industry’s workers, «undertakes this activity as a whole, meaning that all actors involved in the production chain are taken into account.”
“We believe that workers’ associations are basically meant for favoring the consolidation and prosperity of the dairy sector, in the understanding that individual survival is not possible, and much less at the expense of other productive sectors from the national dairy industry.
We are happy to see that dairy producers are prosperous in their activity, because it is clear to us that they are the first link in the production chain that often acts supporting the communities we are part of.»
Ponce also commented that Atilra has made its way to a position within Argentine society, and the Technological Education Center if proof of that, for it is «the result of long years of work and the ideas put forward by many fellow workers who made strong efforts to make this Union what it is today.”
And here we include the six members of Atilra who were activist workers disappeared during the dictatorship, whom we will never forget. This Technological Education Center is also for them,» he concluded.
Restraining trans-national companies
In his speech, the
IUF’s General Secretary
Ron Oswald thanked
Héctor Ponce and the
Atilra team for their great organizational work, and for their hospitality and appreciation in receiving international delegations. He also praised the high quality of the
CET, and expressed his confidence as to the future growth of the Center in its contribution to development and opportunities for numerous communities in
Argentina.
In referring to the 3rd Conference Oswald said: «the Dairy Division was basically a result of the need to discuss and take action in relation to the sector’s global perspective. The IUF’s Executive Committee approved the Dairy Division as the first essential group, thus our own particular identity and our very specific role which face us with the challenges and possibilities we are willing to tackle.”
He went on to say that: “the Division is responsible for two areas, developing policies to aid workers in the sector, and restraining the growing power of the main transnational companies in the dairy industry.
They try to have control over the production and distribution of the raw material and we must ensure that this does not happen at the expense of the rights and quality of life of our communities.
Hopefully, this Conference will help us define specific plans to empower unions in these industries, and also analyze clearly where we are standing today and which way we want to take,» he concluded.
Towards conquering the neglected future
Gerardo Iglesias, Regional Secretary of
IUF Latin America greeted
Atilra and the whole worker’s movement in
Argentina.
He recalled the military dictatorship installed on March 24th 1976, which started what is known as the «dirty war» and took the life of thirty thousand people. «In every ten individuals murdered, six of them were union activists,” said Iglesias.
Neo-liberals had a problem with the strength and the structure of the Argentine workers’ movement, and they were also against Argentina’s economic sovereignty. While they murdered and disappeared thirty thousand people they also shut down eleven thousand factories throughout the country.»
Iglesias said that «imports became a priority towards the growth of global and international economy, and the price for that was the destruction of the local production.
Today, as we visited this new Technology Education Center, someone said to me: ‘This union has a lot of money.’ And my answer was: ‘Not really. This union has a long history and a lot of experience, with a battling present. With this Education Center, the union is gaining a future,» he concluded.
