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After the CGT strike, an official nod to a PRO project to sanction union blockades against companies - Infobae
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Tras el paro de la CGT, guiño oficial a un proyecto del PRO para sancionar los bloqueos sindicales contra las empresas
La diputada Verónica Razzini presentó una iniciativa en la Cámara Baja que penaliza a los responsables de esas protestas extorsivas. La UCR propuso lo mismo en un proyecto de un solo artículo. Por qué ese tema fue eliminado de la Ley Bases
www.infobae.com
May 15, 2024
Representative Verónica Razzini presented an initiative in the Lower House that penalizes those responsible for these extortionist protests. The UCR proposed the same in a single article draft. Why was this topic removed from the Bases Law?
By Ricardo Carpena
The blockade of the Truckers Union in the Parque Ader industrial park, in Villa Adelina, a repeated postcard (Photo Gastón Taylor)
With the endorsement of the Government, the national representative of the PRO Verónica Razzini presented this Monday in the Lower House a bill that provides for the penalization of union blockades against companies. It actually aims to compensate for the elimination of the articles on this topic from the labor reform included in the Bases Law, cut so as not to irritate unionism. It does not seem coincidental that there is libertarian support for this proposal after the second general strike of the CGT against Javier Milei.
The initiative, supported by 14 other deputies from the PRO bench, is not the only one that seeks this objective, since last week a group of national deputies from the UCR presented a project that has a single article in which it proposes sanctioning those responsible for the blockages.
That is why it is not ruled out that the PRO and the UCR, with the support of La Libertad Avanza, end up unifying their proposals to try to get the Chamber of Deputies to approve some of these projects, which will not be supported by Unión por la Patria or the bloc. We make the Federal Coalition, led by Miguel Ángel Pichetto, who carried out the cuts to the libertarian labor reform at the request of the CGT.
PRO deputy Verónica Razzini
The first draft of the labor modernization that the Government proposed to include in the Base Law, like DNU 70, considered union blockades as “ serious labor injury as an objective cause for termination of the employment contract,” although in another article it alleviated the penalties against those who block a company: the decree signed by Milei said that this action would be repressed with 3 to 6 years in prison and the official draft, on the other hand, with 6 months to 3 years in prison.
However, on April 25, the plenary session of committees of the Chamber of Deputies issued an opinion on the Bases Law and the only article that established penalties for blockades was also eliminated. The decision to ingratiate itself with the unions, in search of greater consensus to sanction the official project, led to the acceptance of Pichetto's request: "Not to include anything that affects the CGT."
The Government's retreat was drastic: the articles on labor modernization of the Base Law were 58 and were left at only 16, without the points objected to by the CGT. In addition to the sanctions against the blockades, the “union fund” was safe because the limitation on solidarity dues, key to the financing of unions with the contributions of all workers, not just members, was removed from the text . Also removed from the project were the limitation of strikes in essential services such as education, the modification of the ultra-activity of collective agreements and the penalization of assemblies that become covert strikes, among other points.
Miguel Angel Pichetto, in the Chamber of Deputies when the Bases Law was debated (Photo Gustavo Gavotti)
Despite the libertarian decision to remove the blockades of the Bases Law, as anticipated by Infobae, the Secretary of Labor, Julio Cordero, projects a decision that aims to cover this legislative gap and that will irritate the Truckers Union, which generalized the practice of blocking SMEs: protected by Convention 190 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which recognizes the right to work free of violence and harassment, it will apply sanctions to unions that resort to this type of extortionist protests against companies that, in several rulings, the Justice considered a crime.
Now, even, the deputies of La Libertad Avanza will try to recover a part of the original spirit of DNU 70 through the nod to the bill presented by Razzini, former president of the Anti-Blockade Business Movement (MEAB), which includes the following points:
* The figure of blocking companies is created in both its direct and indirect format and is incorporated into the Penal Code within the crimes whose protected legal good is the freedom of work and association. A direct blockade is considered to be one that prevents, hinders or hinders access to a business, industry or establishment of any type in order to obtain a benefit for oneself or third parties or cause harm. In this modality, the penalty is aggravated when the blockade affects multiple establishments regardless of when they are carried out.
Blockade by the Truckers Union of the company Expreso Lo Bruno
* The figure of indirect blockade is also created , which includes those who make use of threats or demands outside the legal requirements to operate suppliers, service providers, clients or any third party linked to the trade, industry or establishment blocked with the purpose of impeding, hindering or indirectly hindering the normal commercial and/or productive development of the same. “Demands outside the legal requirements to operate” were incorporated as a typical action of the indirect blockade, which aims to “end, in practice, demands such as union debt free, something illegally established in the transportation sector.”
* A penalty is established for both types of blockades where the maximum of 3 years and six months in prison allows the judge to consider issuing effective prison sentences.
* It ensures how the security forces should act in case of blockades.
* The possibility of requesting an exclusion perimeter is established as a precautionary measure against the accused so that they cannot repeat the action.
* Prohibited actions for unions are established, such as the right to hold assemblies without harming the normal activities of the company or third parties. The unions involved were assimilated to the commercial companies accused of money laundering under article 304 of the Penal Code, where punitive options range from fines to the withdrawal of legal status.
The CGT managed to cut the Government's labor reform, but still carried out the second general strike against Javier Milei (Photo Luciano González)
* Essential services and of transcendental importance are declared , where activities cannot be affected by collective conflicts, in the first case ensuring a provision of minimum services of 75% and in the second, 50 %.
* Participation in blockades of both direct and indirect companies is established as a just cause for dismissal .
Razzini's project was accompanied by PRO deputies Gabriel Chumpitaz, Alejandro Bongiovanni, Sofia Brambilla, Patricia Vasquez, Martin Yeza, Karina Bachey, Silvana Guiduci, Martin Ardohain, Sabrina Ajmechet, Emanuel Bianchetti, Ana Clara Romero, Martin Maqueira, Maria Florence From Sensi and Damian Arabia.
On the other hand, the project presented by the UCR in the Lower House to sanction union blockades against companies, which bears the signature of the national deputies Manuel Aguirre, Juan Carlos Polini, Martín Tetaz and Pedro Galimberti, has a single article that says the next:
Article 1 - Add Article 181 bis to the Penal Code, which will be worded as follows: “Article 181 bis: Shall be punished with imprisonment of three (3) years and six (6) months to five (5) years when disturb the possession or tenure of a property with or without violence and/or threats and the following circumstances occur: a) When the normal functioning of the commercial, industrial or service establishment is hindered. b) When, with or without violence, access to the establishment is prevented. c) When the blockade is based on a claim of a personal, labor and/or union nature and an abusive exercise of the right to claim is made. When the blockade in the establishment in question is due to union demands and prevents the normal functioning of a commercial and/or industrial establishment, the penalty will be confinement or prison of four (4) to six (6) years for those who do so. have been summoned as well as for those who have participated in the execution. In no case will the blocking of a commercial and/or industrial establishment be interpreted as the legitimate exercise of a right or in compliance with a duty.”
