Argentine Oil Workers to Strike Over Safety

Oil and gas workers from Argentina’s Neuquen, Rio Negro and La Pampa regions will start a 24-hour strike March 19 to protest for improved safety conditions after a recent incident left one worker dead and three others injured, online media reported.

An estimated 90% of the nearly 25,000 union members from the three regions are expected to participate in the assembly convened by Guillermo Pereyra, general secretary of the oil and gas union for the same regions, reported online media Explicito.

“We demand that necessary security measures be taken to guarantee the life and well-being of the workers,” Pereyra said.

The fatal incident on March 18 occurred in Rincon de los Sauces and is the sixth operator-related death in the Neuquen basin in the last 13 months, Explicito said.