The public policy of privatization of the port sector and its impact on the Organization of work in the Buenaventura's port.

Abstract

With Law 01 of 1991 a new regulatory framework was established.
Through it Colpuertos’ liquidation was decreed and were defined conditions
to modernize the port sector and its functioning by Regional Port Societies
and port operators. The new management model based on efficacy and
efficiency underlying private sector rationality, was implemented in order to
increase the port sector competitivity and the Colombian economy. One of
the neo liberal basic underlying concepts is the labor market flexibilization
regulated in Colombia by Law 50 of 1990 and its posterior reforms looking
for production cost reduction and employment generation. However with
the privatization process the port sector was modernized and the demand
of non qualified hand labor was reduced, utilized intensively in the port
activity before its privatization. This article tries to investigate the port
privatization political impact on work organization in Buenaventura’s
Port considering that Colpuertos was the main employment source in the
city until its liquidation. Currently, Buenaventura presents high index
of employment, unemployment, poverty, marginality, violence, increas
of the arm conflict that has converted the city into a strategic scenario of
territorial dispute for different illegal activities.