A statement from the union states that some collaborators work up to 12 hours a day and rest time is reduced, a situation that could affect the safety of operations on the waterway.

According to the representative of the Canal Captains and Deck Officers Union, Iván De La Guardia, with 20 years of service, the lack of maintenance and working conditions is visible.

They also deprive the workers of the compensatory guarantees, which are the only tools they have in the face of the impossibility of exercising the universal right to strike, he added.

The canal workers, who are members of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), said they will take this matter to the International Maritime Organization and the International Labor Organization.

On the other hand, they rejected the slowness in the bidding process for the purchase of between 10 and 15 new tugboats, according to the report.

They also considered that the Panama Canal Administration (ACP) does not respect the special labor regime, the rulings of the Supreme Court of Justice, the premises of the social dialogue or the negotiations of the Collective Bargaining Agreements.

They argued that the ACP has an overbearing and despotic posture, acting as an institution beyond the reach of the law and the judicial system.

In this regard, Luis Yau, of the Union of Marine Engineers, told the Bayano Digital newspaper that it seems that administrator Ricaurte Vásquez, had pressed the ‘self-destruct button’ on the inter-oceanic waterway, transferred by the United States to Panama in 1999, in compliance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, signed on September 7, 1977.

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