Most Argentine Unions Return To Work

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28802, 24 January 1959, Page 13

Most Argentine Unions Return To Work

(Rec. 9 p.m.) BUENOS AIRES, January 22Argentina went back to work today, except for packing house employees and a few other unions which remained on strike. Police kept up their raids on union offices and elsewhere in search for fugitive labour leaders.

More than 500 trade union < executives have been arrested so 1 far. About 100 of them are held i aboard a naval craft in the har- i hour. Others were flown to gaols in bleak Patagonia and to prison camps. Infantry and cavalry reinforcements arrived in trainloads from the northern provinces to reinforce the hard-pressed armed forces in their widespread tasks of protecting vital points in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area against acts of sabotage. There was another round of bomb explosions early today, mostly in suburban areas. More than 100 bombs exploded yesterday, mostly on railway lines, slowing down train services. Today’s explosions were also aimed largely against the railroads, affecting operations on two lines. La Plata, the capital of Buenos Aires Province, and its industrial suburbs of Berisso. a meat packing centre, end Ensenada with its huge oil refinery, appeared to be the only major trouble spots remaining, United Press International reported. The big torelgn-owned packing plants there were idle. OU workers, who were drafted into the armed forces by Government

order, had returned to their jobs in part and Navy authorities had set up courts to deal with absentees as deserters. It appeared that lack of newspapers during the general strike which collapsed yesterday contributed to the fast spread of the strike on Monday. Anti-Government Labour leaders spread the rumour that hundreds of workers bad been lulled when the armed forces recaptured the Llsandro de la Torre Stateowned packing plant in Buenos Aires, United Press International reported. Actually only 10 were hurt and nobody was killed when troops, led by a Sherman tank, -last Saturday ousted the workers who i had taken possession of the plant, ostensibly to prevent its sale to i private interests.