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🇦🇷 Argentina /Economy & Trade

Community kitchens and food parcels as Capitán Sarmiento reels from 750 Granja Tres Arroyos layoffs

From La Nación · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Ongoing story
  • Granja Tres Arroyos dismissed 750 workers in Capitán Sarmiento, disrupting an economy that depended directly and indirectly on the poultry plant.
  • Workers say delayed wages had been split into as many as 10 payments before layoffs and a shutdown that halted activity.
  • The union and local residents have organized a community kitchen and food parcels as families lose their main source of income.

For years, Granja Tres Arroyos was more than a factory in Capitán Sarmiento. The poultry plant shaped friendships, routines and a sense of belonging among workers who felt part of one family. That stability broke last week, when 750 dismissal notices began arriving and the town froze around the consequences.

The company, Argentina's largest poultry producer, had generated an economy that reached far beyond its gates. Shops depended on workers' spending, families depended on wages, and daily life revolved around the plant. After the layoffs, commerce slowed, the town's quiet rhythm changed and hundreds of households suddenly lost their main income.

In response, the union and neighbors began preparing a community kitchen and distributing food parcels. Mariano Gómez, 41, had spent 23 years at the company, more than half his life. He started in packaging, worked night shifts and cold-storage rooms at temperatures several degrees below zero, and later moved through other sections before ending up in palletizing.

The factory had been the place he went to whether it rained, turned cold or he felt ill. Then wages began arriving late and in fragments. A fortnightly payment was divided into five installments, then 10. Some workers received transfers of only 60,000 or 70,000 pesos while unpaid amounts accumulated. Still, they kept reporting for work. “We have a policy of working. We come from a small town,” Gómez said.

Capitán Sarmiento has almost 15,000 residents. Workers continued showing up despite incomplete pay, hoping conditions would improve. Their workdays shrank from nine hours to four or five, with managers citing a shortage of trucks carrying live birds. One Wednesday they were told not to come in, and the instruction was repeated Thursday. Some entered to finish pending tasks and empty the tunnels. On Friday, the electricity was cut. The town is now confronting what follows when its central source of work suddenly stops.

We have a policy of working. We come from a small town.

· Mariano GómezA dismissed worker described why employees continued reporting to the plant despite receiving wages in fragments.
About this summary

Originally published by La Nación in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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