Puerto Limón On "Work To Rule"
My magic or slight of hand, the government somehow found the way to pay the workers of the Junta de Administración Portuaria y de Desarrollo Económico de la Vertiente Atlántica (Japdeva) and avoid a dock workers strike that would have paralyzed the Port of Limón.

For weeks the government had been analyzing a number of options and somehow miraculously found a surplus in Japdeva. The surplus will used to pay¢470 million colones (us$903.500) dollars that are owed to the dock workers since 2005.

Marco Vargas Díaz, ministro de Coordinación Interinstitucional del Gobierno, is that in the past several days hi had been "shuffling cards" for the alternative, but it wasn't until yesterday that the Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos (Aresep) gave the green light.

According to figures released show that the Japdeva surplus is in the ¢10 billion colones (us$19.2 million dollars), funds that the port authority budget that had been accumulated over the last 10 years and not spent.

Last Friday the government's deadline to pay the workers based on a collective agreement of 2005 expired.

The government had yet to announce how it would pay the workers, who over the weekend decided to go on a "work to rule" basis. The dock workers did not stop or interrupt port activity, but they made sure that no extra time or work effort went into their daily activity.

The workers say they will work to rule until they get paid, which date is yet to be announced by the government.

The work slowdown or "tortuguismo" affects the entire country as the Puerto Limón is the major entry and exit port of goods into and from Costa Rica on the Caribbean coast.

Dock workers at the Puerto Caldera on the Pacific coast got paid in full last month when the port went private, many of the workers assuming their jobs with the private contractors.

The payment to the Caldera dock workers angered the Limón dock workers who vowed to strike in protest and shut down the port entirely. The threat was never made good after a government announcement that they would be paid as soon as the government found the money to do so.

For the time being, the dock workers at Limón are remaining calm, waiting on the government to announce the payment date.