The leaders representing inland navigation workers are meeting in Strasbourg from 5-6 July 2016 to set the workers' agenda for the next two years. They strongly condemned armed police raids in February that resulted in the removal of elected union leaders from their offices and recent judicial intervention over alleged irregular activities. They questioned the legality of these actions and urged the Argentine government to respect the union's constitution and hand back the union assets to SOMU.
Nick Bramley, Inland Navigation Section Chair said “The ITF family calls on the Argentine government to hand SOMU to its members. This intervention not only violates ILO Conventions 87 and 98 ratified by Argentina it also takes us back to a dark era in the region's recent history and the struggle for democracy and workers' rights”
Delegates called on the ITF General Secretary, Stephen Cotton to take all measures within the power of the ITF to reclaim the union for the professional mariners and fishers to consider a complaint to the ILO over this flagrant attack on freedom of association.
Read the resolution here >>
