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29 April 2010 | Interviews | Human rights
Regulation Needed
Uruguay: rural workers denounce non-fulfillment of eight-hour law
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The Uruguayan Parliament passed in December, 2008, a law to regulate working days in the countryside. This law established a limit of eight hours a day and 48 hours per week.
This was considered a victory by the Rural Workers National Union (UNATRA), which had been demanding this basic right for many years.
However, the implementation of the law has not been easy and an Executive decree to regulate the law is still pending. That is why, according to UNATRA, nothing has changed for the workers of many areas of the country, despite the passing of the law.
In an interview with Real World Radio, Martin Plaza, member of UNATRA, said that the regulation is not being complied with in large cattle farms, in agriculture and in some dairy farms.
“The union is proposing to have inspections”, said Plaza, and added that despite the new law, countryside workers are still left aside.
Plaza also warned that in Flores department, soy crops are destroying local production. “Soy producers have to pay more than other producers, which is displacing many workers from different activities”. The labor force needed is low, and one can see the fields planted with soy, but no money stays in the region”, he said.
