Argentina’s national metalworkers union (UOM) expects salary negotiations with metallurgical companies to be finished by April 10 or workers will go on strike, union press secretary Abel Furlan told BNamericas.

If an agreement has not been reached by the time the current contract expires – March 31 – then UOM will call a strike for April 10, he said.

“Negotiations are going to be tough because we are still very far from reaching common ground. And negotiations run the risk of extending beyond the expiration date of the previous contract,” he said.

He added that the union is not asking for a salary hike but a salary adjustment. “We want to recoup [what was lost] to last year’s inflation in Argentina, that is to have salaries adjusted for inflation,” he explained.

The union leader said that this inflation figure had been calculated on the basis of workers’ experience and not from data published by national statistics bureau Indec.

UOM forecasts this year’s inflation will be 20%.

The two sides are due to meet again March 30 at the labor ministry in Buenos Aires.

The union has 250,000 members nationwide.

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