The largest employer in the country is beginning to focus on staff reduction. The Railway Operator, the main company of the state conglomerate Ferrocarriles Argentinos, will implement a voluntary retirement plan, which will cause conflicts. In addition, the company has already initiated the procedures for the companies to stop being state companies and become anonymous. This is the beginning of the “chainsaw plan” but applied to the rails.
This is a measure contrary to what happened in recent years, when the operation of the railways became a monumental employment placement agency for many mayors and leaders of the Renovador Front, Sergio Massa’s party, true number one of the company.
Not only that. The lawyers of the railway companies have already presented the first papers to reframe the corporate type of the companies: they will go from being state-owned companies to public limited companies.
This measurewhich is in the decree of necessity and urgency (DNU) with which the president Javier Miley tries to deregulate the economy, It is a preliminary station, necessary but not sufficient, to move forward with the privatization of companies.. Hence the importance of the matter. “Yes, it was already presented at the IGJ [Inspección General de Justicia]”, confirmed a source from the Railway Operator (OFSE), the main one of all the companies in the group.
The Ferrocarriles Argentinos world is made up of several companies. OFSE is the main employer in the country, surpassing Personal, YPF, AFIP and Cencosud. According to official data published by the Indec, in February it had a plant of 23,675 employees. “There are not many hired here, with some exceptions. They are all employees in a dependency relationship,” clarified one of the main executives. Voluntary withdrawal will be opened for that universe.
The point is that The offer will not have an extra attraction as often happens in the labor market. It will be at market values, that is, one month of compensation for each year worked, plus the months corresponding to vacations, among other items. This modality does not seem to be the most seductive. But we will have to wait. What often happens is that those who appear in these plans are usually two extremes. On the one hand, the good ones who can get jobs in the private sector, with which the company loses human capital; for the other, those who came through politics and do not even go to work or have functions. For the latter, the prize of a silver medal is a great prize.
There is one important fact. The unions of the sector, mainly La Fraternidad, which has all the machinists; the signalmen and the powerful Railway Union do not agreeor with its mass of members shrinking. It seems obvious to say it, but times of conflict will surely come in railway matters.
Argentine Railwaysa company that has all the others under its orbit, It was a kind of distribution without any operational functionto the point that during the time of Mauricio Macri in the Casa Rosada, it had a handful of employees, between the president and the board of directors.
In July 2022when the series of del Indec which reports monthly the number of public employees, It had 17 railway bureaucrats without too many tasks in the operation of the trains. But that lucrative job benefited many more over the past two 2 years. From those 17 in 2022 it went to the current 76. That is, during the Massa administration the bureaucratic Ferrocarriles Argentinos grew by 347%.
Nobody resigned when he took over mercy. Everyone waits for the time of compensation in the comfortable railway seats.
Belgrano Cargo and Logisticswhich is already a public limited company, is the second in number of employees, with a payroll of 4624. There it is also expected that progress will be made with a voluntary withdrawal for one month, similar to the one that was open in March at Aerolíneas Argentinas.
The Railway Infrastructure Administration (ADIF), which is the state firm that manages the infrastructure of the train system, In December 2019, it had exactly 565 employees; Indec reported that in February that workforce was 656. The unknowns in the company are greater since with public works stopped, it is said that only those that are related to operational safety will be maintained, the fate of its workers is uncertain.
A railway mystery
One of the most unique companies in the Argentine train network is Development of Railway Human Capital Public Limited Company with Majority State Participationthe successor of the company Railway Human Resources Administrator. According to its page, “it was created with the aim of design, organize, promote and carry out activities of technical assistance, advice, training, complementation, training, specialization, training and requalification and management of human resources, organizational strengthening and documentary protection in railway matters”. For this task it has 1,048 employees.
The firm is the most important human resources department in the country, since it manages the staff of Argentina’s main employer. Between the OFSE –the one in the labor market, since it surpassed Personal (23,000), YPF (21,320), AFIP (21,000) and Cencosud (20,915)– and the other state companies will prepare 30,092 salary receipts per month at the end of the year.
The voluntary withdrawal that is beginning, it is known, will not generate a flood of employees seeking to join. It will bring conflict in transportation, yes. This is a necessary milestone that the Government drew up before what they call “strong restructuring.” In that territory the word “volunteer” does not exist.