The Briefing:
- Uruguay's government imposed a mandatory minimum-staffing regime at the Terminal Cuenca del Plata (TCP) starting at midnight on Saturday, September 12, after a three-day deadline passed with no agreement between operator Katoen Natie and the dockworkers' union.
- The order stops short of the "essential services" declaration Katoen Natie had requested, but it locks in exact crew counts across nearly every function of the terminal — cranes, both truck gates, warehousing — whenever the union calls a strike.
- Union SUPRA is weighing a formal complaint to the International Labour Organization, while labor federation PIT-CNT calls the staffing floor "excessive" and says it edges close to a normal workday.
A deadline lapses, then a government order
Uruguay's Ministry of Labor and Social Security and its Ministry of Transport and Public Works signed off Friday, September 11, on a resolution setting minimum crew levels at Terminal Cuenca del Plata, hours after a three-day window for labor and management to negotiate their own terms ran out. The order, which officials themselves describe as "transitory and limited," took effect at 00:00 on Saturday and remains active until another resolution lifts it.
Neither ministry invoked the essential-services framework Katoen Natie had requested days earlier. Instead, officials grounded the order in Uruguay's Ports Law No. 16,246, Article 65 of the Constitution, and standards from the International Labour Organization's Committee on Freedom of Association, which separates a strike's economic cost from an actual threat to health or safety.
What the resolution actually requires
The mandate covers three functions during any strike: dockside loading and unloading of ships, the movement of full and empty containers bound for import or export, and warehousing. Road access must clear a minimum of 25 containers per hour.
Role by role, the staffing schedule runs longer than most early coverage suggested. Twelve stevedores and five straddle-carrier drivers top the list, alongside four maintenance technicians and two customs clerks. Add to that two ship planners, four checkers, four supervisors, three crane operators for the terminal's two cranes, and a warehouse clerk. Both truck gates get full crews of their own: the loaded-container gate needs two booths, a dispatcher, a yard planner, three drivers and two inspectors, while the empty-container gate needs a matching administrator, dispatcher, yard planner, coordinator, machine operator and inspector — plus a four-person logistics team. Refrigerated containers and perishable or sanitive-sensitive cargo have to keep moving no matter what.
Why the union won't call this "minimum"
SUPRA president Álvaro Reinaldo argues the numbers describe an ordinary shift, not a floor. "The 50% of service being used is not a minimum service," he said, pointing to how a single crane typically handles a ship carrying a moderate load anyway. He said the union is exploring a formal complaint to the ILO, though he acknowledged that route could take years to resolve and that the union will comply with the order in the meantime.
The labor federation PIT-CNT went further in a statement issued the same day, calling the staffing schedule excessive because it "borders on a situation of normality" in daily terminal operations. The federation added that no regulation can inhibit the constitutional right to strike, while still urging Katoen Natie to use the coming week to close a new labor agreement.
The dispute behind the decree
The standoff traces back to a collective bargaining agreement, covering roughly 550 workers, that expired May 31. SUPRA wants Katoen Natie to guarantee 25 paid working days per month for the current workforce — up from 13 today — or, failing that, two monthly payments of 50,000 pesos per worker for as long as talks continue. Katoen Natie, which owns 80% of TCP alongside the 20% held by the National Ports Administration, calls both options unworkable.
In its own request for an essentiality ruling, filed September 10 with Labor Minister Juan Castillo, TCP cited eight days of serious disruption in 2026 — June 29; July 1, 2 and 13; August 22; and September 2, 3 and 5 — plus an open-ended union guard that started September 7 and, the company said, left truck drivers waiting up to 20 hours to load or unload. A prolonged cutoff, the company warned, "could compromise the sanitary fitness of food" moved under refrigeration.
The business federation "Confederación de Cámaras Empresariales" has spent weeks pricing the conflict's cumulative cost in "tens of millions of dollars," a figure its president, Leonardo Loureiro, has repeated at press conferences since mid-August without breaking out an exact number.
What happens next
Officials insist the new floor doesn't take the right to strike off the table. National Labor Director Marcela Barrios has said the union can still walk out — it just has to keep the specified crews running while it does. Conciliation and bargaining channels between TCP and the union stay open, and PIT-CNT has signaled it isn't planning direct action next week while it pushes for a final contract.
