Scandal! Tenaris SIAT Fires 165 Workers and Solidarity Erupts Across the Region

The laid-off workers of Tenaris SIAT are not alone. They have the strength and support of hundreds of workers from across the region who have already expressed their solidarity and commitment to support them. The company led by steel tycoon Paolo Rocca, one of the most powerful businessmen in the country, has been carrying out a systematic plan of staff reduction and encroachment on workers’ rights at all its plants.

The most important plants of the Tenaris group are located in Campana, Valentín Alsina, and Villa Constitución; the same policy applies in all of them. The Ternium group does the same at its Siderar plant in San Nicolás. Today at Tenaris SIAT in Valentín Alsina, there is a mandatory conciliation process in progress that the company is violating, which is why it is more necessary than ever for workers to organize, together with the internal committee and the body of delegates, to carry out concrete measures that unify the entire plant, both those who still have jobs and those who were unjustly fired.

In addition to the layoffs, the employer wants to apply the recently passed labor reform, which allows employers to sweep away acquired rights and limits many aspects of union action. But this does not mean nothing can be done; on the contrary, we must be bold and take initiatives to achieve the broadest unity and strengthen those who fight and resist. Today at the Mirgor factory of the Caputo group, they also want to apply the labor reform; there, the congress of the UOM Río Grande Section voted for a 24-hour strike, stating the firm decision to jointly resist any attempt to apply the retrograde labor reform.

We must surround their struggle with solidarity, starting with a campaign that demands no layoffs at SIAT. We cannot allow 165 families to be left on the street, while we must also denounce the company’s illegal actions in all forums and publicly. The solidarity campaign of various committees, personalities, and organizations is spreading across the entire region.

The municipality of Lanús and the provincial government cannot allow the illegal and illegitimate actions of the employer. Does Rocca govern in Lanús and the Province of Buenos Aires? We must take advantage of the time that conciliation lasts to organize, seeking unity among all supportive sectors of the labor movement, student movement, neighborhood assemblies, social and political organizations, to prepare a plan of struggle commensurate with the attack that this slave-driving employer is trying to impose.

And it is essential to go and ask for active solidarity from all UOM factories, starting with those belonging to the Avellaneda section, but also from the various companies of the Tenaris group and other UOM factories nationwide that are also suffering layoffs, suspensions, and where employers want to take advantage to try to apply the slave-driving labor reform demanded by Paolo Rocca. The UOM must reclaim its best traditions of struggle; stopping layoffs at SIAT is not just about defending 165 families: it is about strengthening the entire metallurgical workers’ movement against the employers’ offensive.

The fight is now, and the slogan is clear: Not a single layoff at SIAT, not one less right!

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