Since its beginnings in 1537, Peru’s Port of Callao has been flattened by earthquakes and tidal waves, burned by pirates, used as a wartime military fortress, bombed by Spain and occupied by Chile. After each disaster, Callao was rebuilt and continues to be South America’s most productive Pacific port.
Today, Callao is under a different kind of attack that’s hitting ports in Costa Rica, Columbia and across Latin America: A privatization scheme that promises modernization but delivers poor working conditions, unemployment, and violations of federal and international labor laws that ultimately devastate communities that depend on good jobs.
“DP World took over at Muelle Sur (the ‘south dock’) last year, and has refused to negotiate with the union,” said Esteves Morales, the general secretary of Callao’s longshore union, SUTRAMPORPC. “Instead of following federal law and hiring experienced registered longshoremen, they’re picking people off the streets and putting them in our place.”
The Peruvian Government, far from enforcing Port Law #27866, has taken a George W. Bush-like approach to the union: In May, when longshore workers struck against DP World’s poor treatment at Callao, Peru’s government declared a state of emergency to allow the military and police to step in and restore port operations, just as then-President Bush threatened to do at West Coast ports when longshoremen were locked out by the Pacific maritime Association in 2002.
Without enforcement of the federal laws that are meant to protect them, Callao’s longshore workers agreed to return to work, but they have since been drawing international attention to their plight. In June, a lifelong longshore worker who’s elected to Peru’s Congress, Luis Negreiros, met with Coast Committeemen Ray Ortiz, Jr. and Leal Sundet in San Francisco to update them on the situation in Callao.
“What we’re seeing in Callao and across Latin America is a corporate drive, backed in full support by the United States Government, to extract a profit at any cost, and that means workers pay the price,” said Coast Committeeman Leal Sundet. “The tool of the trade is loan shark lending by the World Bank and the IMF with terms that are designed to dismantle social contracts to allow looting of the country’s resources by foreign corporations.”
The Coast Longshore Division has communicated with other longshore unions about the crisis in Callao, and invited Morales, the SUTRAMPORPC leader, to tell the union’s story to other dockworkers at the Global Network Terminals Seminar in Long Beach, held during the week of October 15, 2010. Though Morales fulfilled the requirements for obtaining a travel visa, the United States Government denied him access to the United States based on the claim that Morales had insufficient ties to obligate him to return to Peru.
International President Robert McEllrath has sent a letter to Peruvian President Alan García, demanding that DP World respect national and international laws overseeing collective bargaining rights:
To date, DP World, the terminal operator for Muelle Sur in the Port of Callao, continues to refuse to deal with SUTRAMPORPC, leaving domestic workers completely unprotected and subject to the caprice of the foreign port operator now running Muelle Sur. We have seen this before. Without the basic protection that union recognition and collective bargaining provide, DP World will extract massive corporate profits at the expense of the Peruvian public and Peru’s unprotected dockworkers.
Until DP World comes into compliance, labor unions and their affiliates worldwide will join in the fight to defend the basic rights of Peruvian dockworkers – whatever that support entails.
McEllrath pointed out to Garcia that the United States – Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, which took effect in February of 2009, requires that both countries follow national and international laws that protect the right to collectively bargain, including the adoption of the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-Up.
[McEllrath’s letter is available in its entirety, and also in Spanish, at the Coast Longshore Division’s news web site, at www.longshoreshippingnews.com.]
Costa Rican dockworkers have similarly suffered under a trade agreement and privatization scheme and sought help from the Coast Longshore Division.
“Multinationals go to Latin America promising to build a ‘world class port,’” said Coast Committeeman Ray Ortiz. “But these foreigners from halfway around the world are there for one reason: to make money. They have zero stake in the community’s wellbeing, and promises get broken.”
Case in point is the Port of Caldera, on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, which was privatized in 2006 with lofty promises of investments in new highways, docks and grain silos. But time has shown a long list of documented failures in Caldera, including longshore wages that have plunged by two-thirds, a lack of safety precautions, and increased poverty in the community of Puntarenas.
After seeing the crisis that followed privatization in Caldera, longshore workers on Costa Rica’s Caribbean Coast ports of Limón and Moín rejected a similar privatization scheme. Their SINTRAJAP union leadership was subsequently overthrown by henchmen endorsed and supported by the Costa Rican government in January 2010. The sham board quickly signed a privatization agreement in exchange for a $137 million bribe.
With help from the Coast Longshore Division and fellow Costa Rican unions, the rightfully elected SINTRAJAP union leaders told their story to the Costa Rican public and to dockers worldwide. In August, a high court decision restored them to their posts and threw out the $137 million privatization agreement made by their sham replacements.
The restoration of the legitimate union leaders was a victory for union democracy, but they face another election in January 2011 – and the privatization forces have promised to return to power.
Like Costa Rica, Peru has also had a taste of how its foreign concessioner will treat workers, and it has a choice to make moving forward. Peru’s Minister of Transport and Communications, Enrique Cornejo, recently announced that the government’s investment agency, ProInversion, is accepting bids for a similar concession of Muelle Norte (the “north dock”) as soon as December. Despite the ongoing labor violations, Cornejo cites DP World as a model operator.
Elsewhere in Latin America Seattle-based SSA Marine is on track to build a new $40 million container terminal in Barranquilla, Columbia. The port is close to the Panama Canal, positioning it as a key transhipment hub for cargo bound for East Coast ports when the canal expansion is completed in 2014. SSA, a Goldman-Sachs subsidiary, recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Sociedad Portuaria del Norte, the operator of the port of Barranquilla, to build the terminal. It is unclear whether or not SSA will follow the same pattern DP World.