Argentine Port Workers Suspend Strike after Protester Run Over
Posted by Michelle Howard
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Port workers in Greater Rosario, from where 80 percent of Argentina's grains is shipped, suspended plans for a 24-hour strike on Thursday after a truck driver ran over and killed a protester, a union leader said.
The driver drove through a line of protesters and had been drinking alcohol, according to local television reports.
The workers had started a strike at midnight to protest recent layoffs and demand higher salaries in a range of professions related to port operations.
"We are going to suspend the day of fighting that we had planned for today," Edgardo Quiroga, a delegate for the CGT union in San Lorenzo, north of Rosario, said in an interview with local radio.
Quiroga, who also said the truck driver had been drinking alcohol, said port workers in the region would adhere to a national general strike called by the CGT, Argentina's main umbrella union, on April 6.
Argentine ports are currently exporting wheat and corn and old crop soybeans.
(Reporting by Maximilian Heath; Writing by Caroline Stauffer)