The food that has 11 factories in the country and around 2500 employees, threatens to fire workers at Esteban Etcheverría (PBA). “The chainsaw entered Molinos Río de la Plata”maintains a statement from the internal commission of this plant in which it is also denounced that ”the company began to implement unilaterally the reduction of endowments”, modifying tasks and working in worse conditions with a smaller number of workers than necessary. Molinos is a heavy weight of foodbranch in which oligopolies reign. With its more than 31 brands of mass products, Molinos floods the gondolas of the supermarkets and neighborhood stores, is “present in 98% of Argentine households.”
Daily food producer such as noodles (Luchetti, Matarazzo and Don Vicente), Flours (Favorite and Blancaflor), oil (cook, lyre and ideal), Yerba (Cruz de Malta, Nobility gaucha, chamigo), frozen (chicken legs and pizza sibarita) and wines (grandson Senetinener), are just a sample of their products.
A CEPA Center report indicates that barely 20 companies explain approximately 74% of the billing of food products in gondolas. These are Unilever, Mastellone, Coca-Cola, Arcor, Danone and Molinos Río de la Plata, are some of them. According to this survey Rïo de la Plata has a dominant position in the bridge of noodles in which 79 % of production, rice with 45 % and oils with 36 %. In addition, the Perez Compac company participates in 8 of the 12 food categories analyzed by the report.
This dominant position allows the company to influence both food prices and the availability of basic products. In December 2024, interannual increases in the prices of noodles, rice and oils were 40.4 %, 40.6 %and 74.15 %, respectively (INDEC). Precisely, these are the three items in which Molinos concentrates its greatest market power.
It should not be overlooked that these increases occur even in a context of lower inflation, the result of the adjustment plan that deepened the recession and sprayed the salaries. In no case were the Abrupt remarks applied by food companies in 2023 and after the devaluation of December of that year, when the Food prices fired 29.7 % in just 1 month. It was a direct blow to the tables of the working families: eating became a luxury. These highlights, far from being exceptional, are usual practices used to preserve gain margins.
There are silver
During the year 2024 – despite the collapse of mass consumption due to the economic crisis – mills kneaded a Net profit of $ 32,687 million. If other results are discounted in foreign currency related to subsidiaries, the gain remains positive with an RTotal comprehensive sulture of $ 24,508 millionas seen in the balance presented before the National Securities Commission (CNV).
The shareholders of MOLINOS RÍO DE LA PLATA SA They received the payment of dividends for the sum of $ 81,800 million last December, that is, an amount greater than the gain reported in the 2024 year. This figure is explained because the funds do not come exclusively from the result of the last year, but from the reservation for future utilities distributionconstituted with accumulated gains of previous exercises.
While this practice that allows the company to distribute dividends even when they exceed the net gain of the most recent period, the treatment of their workers in the face of sales is very district. The workers of the mill plant in Esteban Etcheverria denounce that the company told them that there were less sales and that for this reason they were going to reduce personnel. Also “that the wages were very high.”
The group of this food giant is controlled by the Pérez Compac family, which with a fortune valued in USD 4.2 billion occupies the fourth place of the Forbes of Millionaires of the country. The wealth of the Pérez Compac climbed 55.5% compared to the USD 2.7 billion that accumulated just 4 years ago. In addition to Molinos Río de la Plata, the group has a very diversified portfolio of investments. Another of its companies, Agricultural mills registered “an increase of 925% in its operational profitability and 266% in net profitability, reflecting an improvement in the main activity rather than in extraordinary financial results,” says a recent report by the IPyPP Center.
There are silverbut they seek that the adjustment variable be the workers. “They want to produce the same with fewer people … we will not allow it,” said Luciano Greco of the Internal Commission.
Without crisis, Molinos wants to advance layoffs
“The company, based on a false crisis story that they want to impose, advances beyond what even Milei’s reforms allow … Molinos wants to impose a reduction of personnel and salary, without discussing it in the mixed committee of health and safety, as required by law. Because also those additional are by agreement, it cannot take them out unilaterally,” says Grecco, delegate of the CI of Esteban Et.
In the factory “there is concern in the plant and a lot of anger, because in the pandemic we came to work putting our health and that of our families while the company lifted it in shovel.” They are right to have a anger, as we reflected the company has a reserved earnings of previous years to guarantee the distribution of dividends to their shareholders. The crisis is not such, and this company has enough back to maintain jobs.
Not only that, also as they denounce from the CI the chainsaw entered Molinos: “They are playing with the food of our families and with the health of the workers … in a production line where four colleagues work they put three. That generates an overload of the production rhythm and with that the health and safety problems come.”
This Wednesday food workers will mobilize again to defend their jobs. Down the layoffs! For salaries that are high enough to guarantee what is necessary to live every month, and that they are minimal to the family basket measured by the workers of ATE-Indec. A fight plan is needed that coordinates the sectors that face the brutal Milei adjustment plan, businessmen and IMF.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
