The leadership of the
United Argentine Port Union (SUPA)
of
Chubut
was sentenced this Thursday to serve one
month of house arrest
after being found guilty of
extortion and threats
against a group of stevedoring and fishing businessmen in that province.
Alexis Gutiérrez, Bruno Vega, Claudio Villarroel, Juan Zambrano and Juan Inalef were accused of
demanding money from businessmen
in exchange for not interrupting port activity with various forceful measures.
The strikes and the subsequent
requests for bribes occurred between August and September
of last year.
Florencia Gómez, attorney general of Rawson, the provincial capital, had requested preventive detention for five months for the accused.
On the contrary, the leaders of the SUPA union
demanded that union privileges not be withdrawn
and that the request for preventive detention be rejected.
But criminal judge Ana Breckle ordered house arrest for a period of one month and did not accept the protection of the union members' privileges.
Within the framework of the joint meeting in which the union requested an increase of 168%, the pressures came.
According to the businessmen's complaint, in mid-August of last year, Gutiérrez, general secretary of SUPA, demanded that each company pay $2,400,0000 per day to the union representatives, under threat of paralyzing all port activity and avoiding raw material downloads.
Given the refusal of the employers, a week later the union ordered not to send workers to the pallets at the Port of Rawson.
The provincial Ministry of Labor issued mandatory conciliation.
Fishing boat in the port of Rawson, Chubut.
Four days later, after state mediation, there was an agreement and they returned to work, but - always according to the complaint.
The union again demanded payment to avoid conflicts.
Thus, on September 1 of last year, the employers transferred the required funds to three of the union members.
The transfers to each one were $542,660.
At the end of September, the union members carried out the same extortion to another businessman, who paid Gutiérrez as general secretary but also two other union members who had not been paid in the first extortion.
In this second event, the transfers to each one were $219,357.60
In the raids, the justice system corroborated the documentation that consisted of the sequence of bank transfers.
But in addition, the complainants provided the WhatsApp conversations where they agreed on the amount of the extortion.
In the midst of the judicial conflict, another fishing businessman reported that a Molotov cocktail was thrown at his truck.
"Nice threat. This is how she lives in Trelew. I am not going to withdraw any complaint, they are going to have to be held accountable in court," the businessman said in a video.
The incident happened around midnight in the San Benito neighborhood, in the southern area of Trelew.
D.S.