Workers say: 'What's not coming out is our salary'. As the conflict spreads, the call for a general strike at all Granja Tres Arroyos plants grows. The message is clear: no salary, no production. Source: Karne de Máquina, in the Red de Comunicadorxs Solidaridad y Lucha network. Maybe this way we will achieve something, because people are already tired. A repeated story The current conflict is framed in a long chain of labor tensions surrounding Joaquín De Gracia, head of Granja Tres Arroyos, the largest poultry group in the country. Workers expressed their total disagreement: while they wait for that partial payment, a new pay period is approaching with no certain date for collection. Tired of the manipulation, the morning shift workers decided to stop working reluctantly and move to a total strike of activities. At that time, De Gracia himself publicly acknowledged that 'the company is not in crisis,' but was seeking to adjust costs and reduce presenteeism and additional salary benefits. Today, the facts seem to repeat the same pattern: lack of payment, dilatory communication, and pressure on workers to maintain production without a full salary. While the company alleges financial difficulties, workers denounce a strategy of disguised asset-stripping and precariousness. 'People don't eat promises anymore' The conflict in La China once again exposes the fracture between union leadership and the workforce. In recent years, different plants in the holding company have gone through drawn-out preventive crisis proceedings, salary cuts, layoffs, and suspensions, with complaints from the workers themselves about anti-union practices and asset-stripping. It should be noted that the Tres Arroyos Group exports to 60 countries and its profits amount to more than 1,300 million dollars annually. In Concepción del Uruguay, workers had already held strikes and protests in previous months due to salary delays and precarious working conditions. Workers also raised the need to coordinate actions with other plants in the group, such as Becar and others within the Granja Tres Arroyos network, which would be going through similar situations of delayed payments. Workers in conflict are asking delegates and union leaders to call a general strike at all group plants, given that the problem is not isolated but generalized. At the La China plant of Granja Tres Arroyos, located in Concepción del Uruguay, workers decided to start a total production strike after days of working reluctantly and unfulfilled company promises. Patience has run out. 'They want to make us believe there's no money, but the work continues, trucks enter and leave.' The measure, decided in an assembly from the grassroots, was taken after the Food Union, headed by Miguel Klener, advised to continue working reluctantly while waiting for supposed payments 'in the coming days'. While the formal representatives call for patience, decisions are made in assembly, from below, on the production line. The workers' response was clear: enough delays. According to worker sources, to date only 20% of the pay period due on November 7th has been paid. 'We want the support of our Cresta Roja colleagues and other meatpacking plants, because we are all in the same boat,' the workers expressed. The measure completely paralyzes production at one of the most important plants in the poultry group. A decision from below The strike was pushed by the grassroots due to the lack of concrete responses from the union and the employer. On Tuesday the 11th, assemblies were held in both shifts, where it was decided to begin on Wednesday the 12th with reluctant work, in protest of the company's lack of responses. The lawyer for Granja Tres Arroyos contacted the General Secretary of the Food Union, Miguel Klener, to inform that 'in the coming days' deposits would be made and that 'by Friday' 80% of the pay period would be settled, leaving a remaining 20% for the following week.
