All subte lines are back in service today, following another strike yesterday, which caused a big incident between two unions UTA and AGTSyP.  Today AGTSyP members will meet up to discuss the future ‘plan of the battle’ and strategies.

Roberto Pianelli, AGTSyP general secretary, announced that the rotative strike “generates a bigger cost to Metrovías rather than discounting salaries of union workers for the 10 days of strike in August.” Having said this, he declared that the “conflict could be suspended” only if the demand for workers to give 1% of their wages to the UTA is reversed, as well as the wages’ discount for the August strike.

Pianelli considered the previous rotative strikes as ‘effective’, admiting that it was ‘not nice’ to stop the transport and cause problems for the passengers. Regarding to subte operator Metrovías, he explained, “the company looses more than 500,000 pesos per day with rotative strikes.”

Pianelli doesn’t exclude the possibility of a new strike on 13 December, in case the bill about subte transfer to the city government control passes.

The executive committee Association of Subte and Premetro Workers (AGTSyP), promised today there will be no stop in traffic tomorrow, but warns for disruptions this week due to a planned strike.

The workers claim “a salary increase of 28% and an improved escalating increase for long-term employees: all retrospective to last March, when the joint negotiations were successful,” said the Subte delegates to justify “a strike during this week.”

The possibility of the strike was announced on Thursday by the general secretary of the AGTSyP, Roberto Pianelli, who was frustrated after a meeting with the company Metrovías during joint negotiations.

The strike will be definite if the upcoming meeting and continued negotiations tomorrow with the Buenos Aires’ Labour Undersecretary result unsuccessful for the workers. “It would mean another stop of parts of, or even all subway lines until an agreement has been reached,” the delegates announced. The last Subte union strike resulted in a 10-day paralysation of the city in August earlier this year.

The subte strike that affected millions of commuters in the city of Buenos Aires since Friday 3rd August was lifted last night, after the AGTSyP union, private subte operator Metrovías, and the city government reached an agreement regarding working conditions. Subtes started running again at 5am this morning.

After days of fruitless negotiations, AGTSyP (Trade Union of Subte and Premetro Workers) signed a provisional agreement with Metrovías, which includes “improvements in working conditions, changes in leave entitlements, and a re-categorisation of wage levels” according to the union’s press release. The agreement, however, does not include any mention to the demanded wage increases.

“Our wage [increase] has not been solved. We are the only workers who have been waiting for eight months to hold a collective bargaining process, when there are already 1,500 collective bargaining agreements closed in the country,” said AGTSyP secretary-general Roberto Pianelli in a press conference last night.

Last Friday, Metrovías signed another agreement with UTA (Transport Worker’s Union), promising a 23% wage increase for subte workers. However, this is conditional to the city and national governments solving their dispute over control of the subte lines. Buenos Aires mayor Mauricio Macri decided in March not to go ahead with the transfer agreement he had signed with the national government in January, by which the city would take ownership of the contract with Metrovías.

Since then, the transport subsidies the national government transferred to the city – an estimated $124m – have been locked away in a bank account and the city government has refused to withdraw them, claiming it is not their responsibility. During the strike and subsequent negotiations, Metrovías demanded the city government free up those funds to be able to meet the workers’ demands, as well as to operate the service in a safe manner.

AGTSyP was not part of the wage agreement signed by UTA. The latter is the official union, but represents a small percentage of the subte workers. AGTSyP is a breakaway union with majority representation, which is also demanding to be recognised by the government as the genuine representative of the subte workers.

The strike has been suspended for now, and negotiations between the workers and the company will continue. However, the underlying dispute between the city and national government regarding control of the subte has not been solved.

After another failed attempt at reaching an agreement, the city of Buenos Aires’ subsecretary of labour, Ezequiel Sabor, called for a compulsory conciliation on the ongoing subte dispute last night.

One of the unions involved, UTA, accepted to comply with the measure. However, the more combative AGTSyP announced today that there are “no conditions to lift the strike”, which entered its seventh day today, as Metrovías has not offered to re-start the wage bargaining process. The unions and Metrovías are currently holding a meeting, whose results remain uncertain.

On Thursday morning, judge Patricia López Vergara had ordered the city government to arrange a meeting between Metrovías and the subte workers’ representatives. That meeting took place yesterday, but no solution was found. This prompted the city government to call for the compulsory conciliation, despite their claims that the matter is not within theirs, but the national government’s jurisdiction.

Compulsory conciliation is a measure intended to force a meeting between the unions and the company, Metrovías, to find a solution to the current wage disputes. For 15 working days (21 calendar days), whilst the negotiation takes place, the parts in dispute must abstain from carrying out industrial action.

Buenos Aires city governor Mauricio Macri, today admitted in a radio interview to Radio Mitre that “the situation is complicated”, and that he cannot see a solution in the short term “because the metro-delegates [AGTSyP's members] are not cooperating.” He also blamed the conflict on the national government, and said he did not want to take over the operation of the subte because he “does not want to be responsible for deaths like those in Once [train crash]“.

In a press release, subte operator Metrovías criticised Macri’s words, saying that they “only bring confusion.” They blamed the city government for the dire financial situation the company is in, which they see as a consequence of “the decision by the city government to suspend the transfer [of the subte from the national to the city government], generating a debt which is now over $200m, and which is the cause of the problems we are facing today.” They also reassured their passengers that the subte is a “completely safe method of transportation.”

Interior Minister, Florencio Randazzo kicks off a two year rail investment project tomorrow starting with improvements to the Sarmiento railway tunnel. The work in the ‘biggest tunnel in Latin America’ marks the first project from a new transport investment scheme, the details of which are being decided this week. More than $1 billion will be put into improving the network across a period of two years.

The exact details of the new transport plan are being determined over the next 15 days. However, the short term focus will be on the Sarmiento and Mitre branches, previously managed by the Buenos Aires Trenes company (TBA).

TBA were stripped of their contract a month ago due to investigations into the Once train crash in February in which 51 people died.  The cause of the devastating crash on the 22^nd February is still under investigation, however the consistent lack of investment in the city’s transport infrastructure is not under debate.

The new investment scheme is divided into three parts and will improve signalling, tracks, and rolling stock. The project is being headed by the Interior Ministry. It was taken out of the hands of the Ministry of Federal Planning on the 7^th June and will be led by interior minister Florencio Randazzo instead of planning minister Julio de Vido.

The change comes after President Fernández replaced head of Transport Juan Pablo Schiavi with Alejandro Ramos in March.

Tomorrow, work will begin to renew 60 km of track.  Fourty three changes will be made to the Sarmiento line which connects the Once station with the area of Moreno.  The line has been handed over to the privately-owned Metrovías and Ferrovías companies.

“We’ve taken a political decision to make these changes” said Florencio Randazzo during a visit to José León Suárez station on the Mitre branch last Friday. “These works are finally being carried out after years of a lack in investment and maintenance by private companies.”

Randazzo and Ramos met with Benito Roggio from Metrovías and Gabriel Romero from Ferrovias last week to continue discussions about the new contracts.

The final plan is due to be announced on the 13th July.

Three months after a train crash in Buenos Aires left 51 people dead and more than 700 injured, the national government has terminated their contract with Buenos Aires’ Trains (TBA), the company holding the reins at the time.

Federal Planning Minister Julio De Vido announced this afternoon that TBA will lose its hold on the westbound Sarmiento and northbound Mitre lines, which will be handed over to the privately-owned Metrovías and Ferrovías. Metrovías is in charge of running the Subte and the commuters’ Urquiza Line in Buenos Aires, while Ferrovías manages some commuter rail services as well as the Puerto Madero Tramway.

Both Metrovías and Ferrovías – along with TBA, until today – are members of the Emergency Rail Operations Management Unit, which formed in 2004 after transit concessions granted to Metropolitano in 1994 were revoked due to a decline in services.

“TBA has been excluded from the system as an operator and provider of rail service,” De Vido said.

He also said the decision was based on the “the poor state of repair and maintenance, and the deterioration of the capacity and quality of service.”

The deadly 22nd February train crash at Once station had critics of the system calling for the government to end its ties with TBA. Days afterward, Argentine auditor-general Leandro Despouy called for the national government to terminate further contracts with TBA. The Nation’s General Audit also conducted a report in 2008, which denounced the failure of TBA to comply with security regulations.

The federal government announced on the 28th February that it would temporarily take over TBA while an investigation was conducted, though the government had to extend the intervention several times as the investigation went on.

Since the crash, there have been protests from victims and their families. As well, the federal transport minister resigned, and a slew of top train officials were forbidden from leaving the country.

The Argentine Civil Court of Justice ordered the underground train company Metrovías to compensate the equivalent of almost US$80,000 a female passenger who was raped at San José station on Linea E.

Although the incident occurred in December 2004, the case was only settled today, after much dispute.

“The crime should be attributed to the company for their shortcomings of security measures, which were required to ensure passenger safety,” concluded the Civil Chamber. “The incident could have been avoided.”

The incident in 2004 occurred when the victim was exiting the San José Subte station to visit her mother. A man accosting her on an escalator then “covered her mouth with one hand while with the other, held a knife and issued death threats” before violating her sexually, reported the court.

The ruling took an extended amount of time as Metrovías had disputed the original charge that the railway company is responsible for it’s passengers.

Judge Cecilia Federico had ruled that the company “must bear the usual contractual clause stipulated in that the passenger should arrive at their destination safe and sound.”

Metrovías had disputed Judge Federico’s ruling, claiming the incident “was an unforeseeable event, and displays the characteristics of a fortuitous case.” They further challenged the claim, pointing out that at the time of the incident “the use of video cameras was not as widespread as it is today,” making the act “proved to be a unpredictable event.”

However the Judges concluded that, “if there had been security personnel carrying out patrolling as expected, the criminal without a doubt would have been deterred from committing such a crime.”

The case concluded with ordering Metrovías to compensate the female, as “the criminal act should be imputed to the company for the shortcomings of security measures which the company should have guaranteed, since the act was avoidable.”

As expected, a strike on all six lines of the Subte network began today at 11am, and will last until 4pm this afternoon.

Thousands of commuters were affected by the move, finding alternative ways to travel the capital at peak time.

Today’s strike comes as part of a week of action against the transport company. Both yesterday and on Tuesday, passengers travelled free of charge between 9 and 11am.

Subte workers, members of the Subway Workers’ Union, are demanding that the Metrovías company begin collective wage bargaining talks, with the objective of a 28% increase, as well as more investment in order to improve the service.

The workers on the Buenos Aires Subte are today carrying out a strike between 5pm and 7pm. Service will continue as normal but the barriers will be open and passengers will be able to travel for free.

All six lines will take part in the protest although a few barriers will keep working: Plaza de Mayo and Peru on Line A, Leandro N. Alem and Florida on Line B, Retiro on line C, Catedral on Line D, Bolívar and Entre Ríos on Line E and Corrientes on Line H.

The Union Association of Underground and Tram Workers (AGTSyP) are embroiled in a row with the city of Buenos Aires over pay and the civic government is refusing to negotiate.

“(This is because of) The childish attitude of the head of the city of Buenos Aires government, Mauricio Macri, for not wanting to take control of the subte and acting in an irresponsible way,” the secretary general of AGTSyP, Roberto Pianelli, said, “and now a crisis is beginning where Metrovías says that it doesn’t have any money, they are delaying our salary payments and there is no material for maintenance and security.”

After this morning’s three-hour strike that again paralysed the Buenos Aires subte system, union leaders, specifically from the Association of Subway Workers and Premetro (AGTsyP), still await conciliation with Metrovías and the Ministry of Labour.

“Unfortunately, we have to report that [Metrovías] still has not called us, nor the Ministry of Labour,” said Nestor Segovia, the union representative for subte line C, which has been completely out of service.

Despite the compulsory conciliation process ordered by the Ministry of Labour, there has been no discussion yet to reconcile the demands of the union.

Among these demands are a 28% salary increase and better conditions of labour, including greater investment in roads, units, and stations that would improve function and safety.

Segovia further said that Metrovías had precipitated “a cascade of conflicts” around the subtes and that “neither they nor the Ministry care about the situation.”

The Auto Transport Union (UTA), for its part, has rejected the work stoppage, calling it “a disgrace” and urging formal measures to address the demands of transport workers, as well as sanctions against the strikers.