“The conditions in which these women carry out their work are not the best. Some workers have to wear diapers because they do not have the time to go to the bathroom,” said Colombian Labor Minister Gloria Inés Ramírez in a public intervention on Wednesday. She was referring to work at the Seatech International plant, a multinational food company that produces Van Camp's brand tuna in Cartagena de Indias. Although the last days of December are not the most prone to a public debate, Seatech responded and increased a discussion that has been going on for months and that had until now gone under the radar.
Alicia Cardiles is an employee of Seatech and member of the National Union of the Agri-Food System, Sinaltrainal. In March, in the midst of a campaign against abuses of workers' rights by multinational companies, she gave testimony in the Congress of the Republic, which she has repeated ever since. “This company Seatech International, where they make Van Camp's tuna, is forcing us to use disposable diapers because they deduct a trip to the bathroom from our salaries. “This is causing us future diseases in our reproductive system, urinary infections that can turn into cancer in the future,” she says in a video released on social networks since the middle of the year, and that after the minister's statements went viral.
Seatech filed a criminal complaint against Cardiales at that time, pointing out that he had committed the crime of libel. Since then, Daniel Polo, Sinaltrainal's lawyer, has defended her. The lawyer explained to Caracol Radio that there is no order to use diapers, but rather working conditions that have led some workers to choose to do so to avoid having the time they use to go to the bathroom deducted from their salary. In addition, he has presented payroll statements in which it is clear that the company has paid fractions of days to its workers. Although the document does not clarify the reason why full days of work are not recognized, the data fits with the complaint.
After the debate, the Ministry of Labor clarified that it is investigating 26 alleged labor violations at Seatech International. In a statement published this Thursday, explained that on October 19, several inspectors from that portfolio visited the company's facilities and “found 26 findings that are the subject of investigation.” The Ministry clarified that one of them is a possible “illegal discount in salaries due to time control for physiological needs.” “The workers expressed their disagreement with alleged illegal discounts, when using the bathrooms, in the same way when their period arrives, as they stated that they must use disposable cloths so as not to generate payroll deductions due to absence from work. of work,” explains the document, which also states that “an agreement must be reached not to deduct salaries for the evacuation of physiological needs.”
However, the debate continues. Not only because an expected response from the companywho said that she “flatly rejects the unfounded statements of the Minister of Labor,” but because of opposing versions from other workers.
W Radio spoke with Ana del Carmen Padilla, who said that they do not deduct her wages for going to the bathroom. “That's a lie. Here there will be women who use a cloth because we menstruate, but the fact that we don't use the bathroom is a lie (…) they haven't deducted anything from me and I go to the bathroom as often as I can. I invite the minister to come and see it, none of us are prohibited from going to the bathroom,” she said on air. And another workers' association, the union of workers in the tuna fishing industry (Sintramar), officially responded in the same sense. “It is not true that workers are not allowed to go to the bathroom to relieve themselves,” she said in a communication.
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The clash of versions between different workers and between two unions occurs just when the workers' confederations, which bring together these organizations, are sitting at the table with the employers' unions and the Ministry itself to define the increase in the minimum wage for 2024. If not reach an agreement, like the one they obtained in 2022, it will be the Government who unilaterally defines the figure. Union bidding, such as the differences between Sintramar and Sinaltrainal, can affect the possibility of an agreement.
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