Uruguayan tanneries in trouble
16/06/2011
Cattle slaughter is down and beef prices are going up, which is having a direct effect on the prices abattoirs charge tanners for hides. Recent comments suggest hide prices are levelling off, but at a high price of around $1.47 per kilo.
Meanwhile, the total number of cattle going for slaughter in Uruguay in the week leading up to June 4 was 34,127 head, 20.8% fewer than the previous week and 30.9% down on the same week in 2010. It was the lowest weekly slaughter figure so far in 2011.
Uruguay’s meat sector was already in trouble, sources there have said, after the economic downturn of 2008. Many meat packer firms have been running restricted operations, as have tanneries. The recently laid-off tannery workers in San José, from the Toryal tannery, had been working restricted hours since March 2009, with state benefits supplementing their reduced salaries. These benefits will expire on July 1, the date the company has said the jobs will go.
Toryal has a total of 102 workers at the plant and trade union representatives have threatened a sit-in at the tannery if the redundancies go through. Union leaders say the company promised that the 37 workers would be reinstated after their downtime.
Montevideo-based newspaper El País quoted a Toryal spokesperson as saying the company had stuck to all the rules governing the reduction of its workforce at every turn. He said the company had been losing money for several years and that labour costs had been going up because of the weak dollar. The company exports most of its leather and the dollars it has brought in in sales have been converting into fewer pesos.
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