Special forces made further arrests at Chile’s Port of San Antonio, where a strike by port workers is causing major disruption to fruit exports. According to a report on the Soysanantonio.cl website, Sergio Vargas, spokesperson for the Port Workers Front, was amongst those arrested.
Earlier, Vargas was involved in a face-to-face meeting with Chilean Fruit Exporter Association Asoex and Chilean Fruit Growers Association Fedefruta and other members of the fruit industry in a bid to end the deadlock. Fedefruta president Cristián Allendes said the aim of the meeting had been to help establish a dialogue between the unions and the government in a bid to gain a better understanding of the workers’ demands.
Meanwhile, the management at the Port of Valparaíso has developed a contingency plan to relieve some of bottleneck caused by the dispute in San Antonio. The port’s general manager of corporate affairs, Cristián Calvetti, told FreshFruitPortal that the port is working at full capacity to absorb the extra demand from ships diverted from other ports. He said the flow of ships had increased by 36 per cent, while truck traffic was up by 28 per cent.
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