While the Chilean port of San Antonio has attracted the most attention internationally for strikes that debilitated fruit exports, the port of Valparaiso suffered its own problems in parallel. Aside from being overloaded, reports arose about stevedores joining the solidarity strike with workers in Angamos in Chile's north.

On Friday, a representative from Pacifico Sur Terminal (TPS) told www.freshfruitportal.com that workers from Ultraport's union were striking.

In their view, the port was under strain but working as normal. TPS denied reports that fewer ships were leaving the port than planned. Although only one ship was tended to Thursday, the representative said only one ship had been scheduled for that day.

On par with the rapidly changing information that circulated Friday, Pacific Seaways executive director Francisco Labarca said nothing certain could be confirmed.

"At the moment, it’s so unclear that, I won’t dare say anything. What I say now could be different already," he said on Friday.

"Today the port is working slowly. Valparaiso is only TPS. The public port is not working."

On Sunday, Chilean president Sebastian Piñera declared the national strikes over but one union representative from San Antonio said the Espigón terminal was still not operational.

Juan Venegas

To understand more about the situation, this week www.freshfruitportal.com headed to San Antonio and Valparaiso to hear more about the situation from the strikers' point of view. Yesterday we published the perspective from San Antonio, while in this story we hear from Juan Venegas, representative of one of Valparaiso's largest unions, Uniport. In this Q&A, he tells of the late response to the solidarity strike from his group comprising 200 port workers.

How did the strike begin in Valparaiso?

"The entire movement began in solidarity with Angamos. They had the condition in which the company was not in dialogue, and as part of the Ultraport family, we felt the duty to support them. This was prompted by the youth group, who pressured us so that we would realize that we had to support our companions in the north, and this exploded in Valparaiso coming to a halt.

However, you only joined the strike in the last week. Why did this happen?

"Unfortunately, we were a bit disinformed and we didn't really know what their reality was. In the days before the conflict finished, we entered the social networks of what was happening. Our idea was to help but we didn't know how, and the youth arm of the union pressured us and we adhered to the strike.

"What happened in San Antonio, what happened in Valparaiso, in Angamos and different ports, is the result of workers not being listened to, and that the government doesn't realize this is the issue to resolve, not just simple demands but the value of the half hour break, or clothes, or even decent bathrooms - they are social and structural issues."

What are the main demands you have today?

"We met with the company and we told them that our main demand was an improvement in the standard of living of workers. At present each worker does around 44 shifts a month, they are very tired. Some workers who live outside of Valparaiso take up to two hours in arriving at their homes, they manage to sleep four hours and they have to go back on shift. This is not healthy.

How does the company stand?

“We are speaking and that interests us, but for them it depends. It is the company that has to take responsibility to have concern about its workers.

What is lacking, in your opinion?

"What is lacking is the government and companies taking weight of the issue; that they stop looking at growth rates and see that the workers have problems, that farmers have problems, and we don't have to come to this.

www.freshfruitportal.com