Union and Bimbo in Panama reach wage agreement and end labor strike

Panama City, 18 Mar The National Industrial Union of Flour and Allied Workers (SITHA) of Panama and the Mexican transnational Bimbo reached an agreement on Friday that includes a 4% salary increase, ending the strike that paralyzed the company since March 9. “Thank God we managed to close the conflict because we had many days fighting with this transnational corporation,” SITHA Secretary General Rafael Salazar told Efe. The union leader specified that a 4 per cent annual salary increase was agreed within the framework of the new collective agreement that will apply until 2025, as well as adjustments in the table of commissions for sellers, among others, for the benefit of more than 690 workers. “We managed to prevent a decline in wages (...) Bimbo made a proposal for a 5 cent increase and we wanted 10 cents,” he said. The strike kept Bimbo's seven Panama facilities, one production plant and six distribution agencies paralyzed, and work is expected to resume this Friday afternoon, Salazar added. For its part, Bimbo announced in a statement that it “restarts its operations and reaffirms its commitment to the country and its partners”. “We inform that we will be resuming productive work and operations at 100%, after reaching an agreement with SITHA on March 18 on the points of the Collective Agreement that will govern for the next three years,” the company said. Bimbo assured that it has maintained respect for the rights of its collaborators as a “priority” in all these years of operation in the country, “a principle that has prevailed in every collective bargaining”, as well as its conviction that constructive and argued dialogue is a pillar for the management of healthy labour relations. “With this agreement, we resume our activity throughout the country, we appreciate the trust in the brand and its products, as well as the support of our customers, suppliers and consumers during this process of standardizing the usual operations of production, sales, distribution and administrative services, in the coming days,” added Bimbo. The transnational company did not give figures of losses due to the halt of activities, nor did Salazar. “The losses are not clear, they were 9 days in which bread was not produced or sold,” said the union leader. CHIEF gf/lll