Argentina: Truckers protests against AmBev at Brazil's embassy

Argentine truckers on Tuesday blocked traffic outside Brazil's embassy in this capital to protest the decision by a local subsidiary of Brazilian beverage giant AmBev to terminate its contracts with some distributors, EFE News reported April 10.

The leader of the truckers' union, Pablo Moyana, confirmed the indefinite strike announced Monday to denounce brewer Quilmes' move to end agreements with four distributors beginning in July.

Moyano said the strike, which affects other brewers as well, was backed Tuesday by the union of soft-drink industry workers, and therefore also harms the distribution system of Coca-Cola and other companies.

"The strike is for an undetermined period of time, until an agreement is reached with Quilmes to guarantee jobs at all the country's distributors for three years," he said.

The union leader told reporters that he will attend talks organized by the Labor Ministry for Tuesday and will call on Quilmes to relinquish its plans to change the distribution contracts.

Quilmes, the leading beer maker in the Argentine market, "intends to reduce to eight the 24 distributors" it has in Greater Buenos Aires and undertake a similar reduction among the 200 in the rest of the country, he said.

Moyano, the son of the leader of Argentina's largest labor confederation, the CGT, said that if no agreement is reached the truckers will take their demonstration to the River Plate soccer club's Monumental stadium, where the "Quilmes Rock" festival - sponsored by the brewer - begins on Thursday.

Quilmes insists that the termination of its agreement with the distributor Riganti will not result in any job losses. EFE

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