what it is like to work in Mercado Libre, where the labor reform is already in force

The Milei government, together with the businessmen, governors and a large part of the caste want to worsen working conditions even further, carrying out a labor reform in the image and likeness of the businessmen. In Mercado Libre, the most listed company in Argentina, they already use large aspects of this reform.

In The Daily Leftwe tell you first hand how this free market workswhere workers day after day leave their lives, their backs, their tendinitis, their sweat and it makes Galperin increasingly richer, who enjoys getting rights from the workers.

You ask for it, you have it

The package leaves from a logistics center, the hundreds that exist between the Capital and the Conurbano, it could be Pacheco, Temperley, the Central Market, Paternal or other locations. They work on the stick, without further ado, they run, they shout, they carry packages, one after the other. Someone clicks, buys an appliance, a t-shirt, a car part, whatever. In a business, in its warehouse, the packages are put together, gathered per day, loaded and taken to the logistics center.

I am in the last part, the last link in the chain, waiting to leave with the flat loaded to distribute. It is distributed in the morning, in the afternoon and if not, you arrive until late at night. The package, no matter what, has to arrive.

At 2 in the morning the boys and girls enter the warehouse, all under 30 years old. The truck is in the dock, Clark is lowering the pallets. The carts on the side are labeled with a code, the picking says where they go, what area it touches, what route. You sweat, you walk quickly, “come on,” a supervisor shouts. The routing of each delivery person is done by a programmer, a young freelancer who puts together hundreds of hundreds after others. This is how they put them together, quite bad for the delivery man, quite decent for what they pay him.

The cars fill up, 70, 80 or 90 packages for the small vans, between 170 and 200 for the large ones, whatever it takes. Yellow bags, boxes with yellow tape and a yellow vest from one of Mercado Libre. RKT plays very loudly while the store is closed and everything is put together, it comes from a speaker that was bought among several, annoying noise that comes from some cell phone with Spotify Premium.

For all this, something important, no one is from Mercado Libre, everything is outsourced. Except for some hierarch who comes from time to time to keep watch.

The thing is more or less like this: the business sells, the small business is eaten by the big one, the commissions for Marcos Galperin are succulent and the small business loses almost all profits, the big business wins, monopolies as Galperin and Milei like.

Then it goes to the distribution center, huge warehouses throughout the AMBA that take out one package after another, the operators are young, girls and boys under 30 years old, with new muscles to move. The union is Loading and Unloading, a pro-employer union, which accepts any type of agreement and a bank of hours so that overtime does not exist. The hours bank works like this, if the employers need it, you stay longer, then another day, whenever they want they will give it back to you, the organization of your life? I owe you. Vacations are the same, when there is a drop in sales they give them to you, if it’s August and you have nowhere to go, take advantage and do things at home. Something central is that everyone is hired for logistics, nothing about Mercado Libre, this is a free market to outsource.

When the thousands and thousands of cars are finished being assembled, the doors of the warehouse are opened, in Paternal, the Central Market, Munro or Hurlingham, There at the door is an endless line of trucks, few new, many old, driving as best they can. Whatever you take, from a telepass to a smart phone, everything has to fit.

The line is endless, we are hundreds of hundreds of guys and girls waiting to get in, they tell you at 7 and maybe you get in at 10 to load. Wait, be patient, drink mate and get bored, no one will pay you for those hours.

They come in, fast, in a hurry, some of them have to be pushed to start, the money they pay is not enough to fix it often. It is counted, loaded and left, all quickly, without many turns and no conversations. You get the area you get, what you get gets, luck is crazy. Then Pilar to Palermo if you distribute in the North, from Rodríguez to Caballito de sos del Oeste and the same for the south. You have to distribute everything, if not there, call, come back and keep trying, if you have a package left you have to leave it again, it doesn’t matter where you live, if you are in Pilar, go back to Paternal for a package. You pay per package delivered, if the client is not there you do not pay, the return to the deposit, less. If it breaks, you crash, whatever, you are responsible, the one who drives, breaks pays, like in the neighborhood. It’s over when it’s over, if you’re quick before, if you’re far away later, if you go back to the warehouse, get in line and be lucky.

It is also distributed by motorcycle, you put a box in the back, or you use the order backpacks now and fill them with packages, whatever you can, you balance and leave, you travel shorter, you come and go and continue distributing.

“What time do they leave today?” He asked one of the kids, “I don’t know, type 10 or 11, you have to put him in.” The bosses’ whip works, so that they don’t make you stay because the hours bank allows it, you run because you want to leave. When you leave, another truck enters, one after another, so they continue in the warehouse, until the shift’s loading is finished. Then they close for a while, tidy up and leave everything ready for the next shift.

Once you load the 80 or 90 packages, you control everything and leave, the application orders them for you and you go. One after another, you press the button that you are arriving. In that giant mountain of packages you search and deliver, you ordered them as best you could because they are rushing you. The distribution is done by the plates, if you do it slowly you finish at any time, you park where you can, double row, in a car exit, in the ochava on the corner, and beacons and it was. There are plenty of bullshits, the street is burning, the horns sound and the noise of engines sounds that stuns.

Nothing is as the publication says. There are not as many smiles, and it is misaligned from so much coming and going. You ring the bell, you clap or you talk to the country security, some are waiting for you, others don’t even know what they asked for, what the code word, and what do I know, the longer it takes with each one, the later we finish. You notice the accelerated pace and you walk at a brisk pace.

If you’re lucky you finish more or less early and deliver everything and go home, otherwise you return to the warehouse and lose two more hours. From time to time we review the fines, sometimes you owe more than the value of the truck. With what you earn, you cover expenses, the monotax, insurance, gasoline, gas, puchos and a sandwich in a hurry.

They pay you about 90 thousand per day for the small trucks, 170 for the large ones, from there you deduct those expenses, with what is left feed your family and pay your taxes, which Marcos Galperin does not pay, he went to Uruguay to avoid paying them and his express has tax exemptions and thus, between what the State gives him, the businesses, and paying little to all his precarious employees, he makes his fortune.

This is how you live and work for Mercado Libre, where the labor reform is already a fact and the body, the pocket and the living conditions know it. This is how they want us all to live, at the foot of companies, their times, their needs, their lives and their fortunes.