Hear
Marcelo Rucci replaced Guillermo Pereyra in front of the Private Oil Tankers Union Río Negro, Neuquén and La Pampa, which will activate a 48-hour strike starting tomorrow in Vaca Muerta, the immense reservoir of unconventional gas and oil that is considered a gold mine. He claim is for a salary increasebut also due to the possible reversal of the fourth category of the income tax in case the fiscal package is validated in Deputies.
Rucci is 58 years old and is a union leader with a more combative profile than Pereyra, of whom he was his administrative secretary. He is capable of paralyzing the fields with just a phone call and has reach and good harmony with the rest of the oil unions in Patagonia. He, along with Claudio “Loma” Ávilaa reference in Chubut and current national deputy of Together for Change, and Claudio Vidal, leader in Santa Cruz and current governor of that province, are the three leaders of the Group of Seven, as the block of oil unions is called. They usually negotiate joint ventures in tandem and became a bastion of power. They adopted a much more combative profile than when Pereyra, the historic Neuquén leader, was there. It had to do with that change of skin Pablo Moyanowhich more than once made its trucker militants available to the oil workers in case they needed to promote a street protest.
In parallel to his union role, Rucci was mayor of Rincón de los Sauces in 2011, a city north of Neuquén with about 20,000 inhabitants. He was re-elected in 2015. He gained power at the hands of the Neuquén Popular Movement (MPN). At that time, the local newspapers described him as the “piquetero mayor” for an episode in 2017, when the city was blocked by about 100 people fired from the OSP company and received the support in person of the communal chief himself. The protest, which paralyzed the Neuquén and Mendoza fields for two weeks, included the complaint that the mayor and a group accompanying him in seven vans threatened YPF employees. The controversial episode occurred just when Pereyra, then the oil boss, was part of the delegation that accompanied the president. Mauricio Macri through Houston, on a tour in which he hoped to attract oil investors. Macri included him in the official delegation to show the civilized face of unionism to oil investors, but he did not know that While he was walking friendly through the streets of Houston, the sites of Neuquén and Mendoza were paralyzed by Rucci.
Macri tested with Pereyra a micro labor reform that he imagined transferring to the rest of the industries. Agreed to restrict the right to strike in order to avoid a drop in productivity, among the points of an agreement that raised controversy. In order to boost the arrival of investments, the oil union gave salary benefits. One of them, the so-called “taxi hours” and a decrease in the number of operators per drilling rig. Rucci opposed the changes, and the rejection reinforced his alliance with Ávila and Vidal.
Rucci justified tomorrow’s measure of force in that there are workers who are below the poverty line. They are the so-called “eight-hour workers,” who receive salaries below the basic basket line, between $600,000 and $800,000. “An oilman is below the poverty line. By hook or by crook, we’re going to fix it. There is not going to be an oil tanker that has to go through that type of needs. They are responsible. They’re going to have to fix this mess. And I hope we fix it this week. Because if not, next week we will be on strike,” Rucci said.
THE NATION
