Argentina’s biggest grains export complex came to a near standstill on Monday after dockworker strikes blocked access to most shipping terminals in San Martin and Timbues ports, including Bunge, Cargill, Dreyfus, and others. In an extension of protests that began last week, workers striking over wages widened protests burned tires and prevented grain trucks from entering the two ports and others near Rosario, 310 miles north of Buenos Aires, union and media sources said.
“We are waiting for the terminals to call us and we’ll surely sit down again for talks. Negotiations have not been cut off,” Herme Juarez, president of the Port Workers Cooperative and the United Syndicate of Argentine Port Workers, or SUPA in Spanish, told Reuters. The union estimates that for each day of protests, they are blocking exports of 100,000 tonnes of grain, affecting $12.5 million in exports, according to la Nacion newspaper.