ORANJESTAD –– The dockworkers of stevedore company Astec are on strike. They have blocked the harbors of Oranjestad and Barcadera as well as their offices .
According to Dave Franken, Chairman of trade union Union Portuario di Aruba (UPA), they are still waiting for a written confirmation from the Minister of Tourism and Transport, Edison Briesen, on their terms of employment. "We received a verbal promise that our current terms would remain the same, but we have not received a confirmation yet. We had given the Minister until yesterday afternoon to comply with this, but we have not received a response, so we decided to take actions" according to Franken, just before a meeting was to take place in which a decision was to be taken whether to continue the actions or not.
The employees of Astec had already stopped working for a few hours last week as they requested written guarantees from the government that their wage, function, individual, and collective labor conditions will be maintained, regardless of the outcome of the allotment process for the stevedore in the container harbor of Barcadera.
Land regulation
After Astec had lost the arbitration case last month on the termination of the allotment contract against the Aruba Ports Authority (APA), minister Edison Briesen (MEP) of Tourism and Transport verbally promised UPA that the relevant employees would not loose their job. However, these guarantees require a Land Regulation, according to the trade union. After the arbitration case, minister Briesen informed the Astec-employees that if the contract with the stevedore company is terminated, APA is obligated to arrange that the new concessionary takes over the Astec employees and takes on possible dismissal compensations for employees who would not be taken over.
Briesen had informed the press that ‘from director Schoon downwards’ all jobs at Astec would be guaranteed by APA. He also indicated it was ‘a pity’ that, now that their employer Astec had lost the arbitration case against the Aruba Ports Authority, the political opponents of the government would stir up the UPA-members against the government.
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