Argentina’s biggest fishing fleet is based at Mar del Plata, in Buenos Aires province. There are several problems at Puerto Madryn, the Patagonian home of the second-biggest commercial fishing fleet. But now the Patagonian fishing industry is in trouble as with economic recovery, trade unions have regained their bargaining power and begun pressing for higher wages. They staged a 45-day strike in 2005, occupying processing plants. In 2007 protesters burned down a processing plant in Puerto Deseado, further south.
Martín Luis Olmo, president of the fishing council of the Puerto Madryn municipal government, informed that the unions have gained control over the hiring of labour. He added that there is no free market for port workers. He pointed out that the unemployed know they can’t get work here, because the union won’t let them in. Experts believe that the biggest threat to the industry is its own rapacious overfishing. Nationally, skippers pay some $2m-3m a year in bribes to inspectors, and routinely underreport their catches, according to the Centre for Development and Sustainable Fisheries, an Argentine NGO.
Puerto Madryn’s fishing entrepreneurs speak of crisis. Most companies have already started laying off workers, closing plants and selling boats to cover their losses, which reached around 15% of sales in 2007. The government is short of cash and the need to develop Patagonia may now seem a low priority.
