Coast Committeemen Ray Ortiz, Jr. and Leal Sundet met with Peruvian Congressman Luis Negreiros in June to discuss the ongoing attack on union rights in Peru, which is part of an unsettling trend in Latin American ports. One by one, publicly owned ports are being turned over to multinational corporations like DP World and others that disregard the longstanding union rights of port workers. Ortiz, Sundet and Negreiros had frank discussions about DP World’s recent refusal to negotiate with the SUTRAMPORPC union in Callao, Peru’s largest port. When union dockers went on strike in May, the government authorized the militarization of the docks, forcing strikers back to work. The Congressman is also a longshoreman and a former SUTRAPORPC union officer.
