Pauny executives did not attend the hearing at the Ministry of Labor and offered voluntary retirements for up to 150 employees. With the Las Varillas plant occupied and two months of unpaid wages, the workers described the absence as a "provocation and humiliation".
The crisis at national tractor manufacturer Pauny added a new chapter of tension this Thursday. Company officials did not attend the hearing convened at the Ministry of Labor to seek a way out of the conflict with the workers, who have gone two months without pay and continue to occupy the Las Varillas plant. Instead, they submitted a proposal for voluntary retirements for up to 150 workers through electronic means, within a restructuring plan.
The workers, represented by Lucas Sarmiento, of the UOM San Francisco, described the absence as a "provocation and humiliation". The metalworkers' leader anticipated that they will demand a new hearing with the company's top executives and that, if they fail to appear again, they will ask that they be summoned by the police. He also announced criminal complaints against the owners. "It is highly offensive, highly irresponsible on the part of the company. They want to shift the blame elsewhere," Sarmiento said.
The filing the company submitted to the Ministry of Labor bears the signatures of president Raúl Enrique Giai Levra and vice president José María López. In the document, the executives acknowledged that Pauny is going through a "situation of extreme economic and financial difficulty", attributed to a "very significant drop in tractor sales". According to their explanation, management is drawing up a comprehensive restructuring plan to adapt the operating, production and administrative structure to current market conditions.
The first concrete measure is a voluntary retirement program for up to 150 workers, with compensation equivalent to 100% of the severance pay for length of service provided for in Article 245 of the Labor Contract Law, although payable in twelve installments. The figure is not insignificant for a plant that has already cut its workforce from about 515 workers to around 400 in recent years.
In the same document, the company stated that it does not dispute the legitimacy of the wage claims and that it maintains its willingness to pay the wages owed. However, it made any new round of negotiations conditional on the lifting of the occupation of the industrial plant. "PAUNY S.A. will not continue to take part in negotiations with the union for as long as the occupation of its industrial plant persists," they stated. As an alternative, it committed to presenting a payment plan providing for the full settlement of the wages owed before December 31, 2026, if the workers vacate the facilities and conditions are restored to operate normally.
The crisis has been accumulating signs of deterioration for several months. The arrival of imported tractors, particularly of Chinese origin, changed competitive conditions, with equipment that in some cases is sold at prices close to half those of domestic models.
The commercial figures show the scale of the decline. In its best years, Pauny built between 180 and 200 tractors a month and reached annual production of close to 2,000 units. However, in September of this year it registered only 24 units, while the cumulative total for the first ten months reached 316 tractors, 28% less than in the same period of 2025.
The drop in sales was compounded by financial difficulties, with bank debts of more than 30.8 billion pesos and more than 1 billion pesos in bounced checks. The deterioration also hit suppliers in the region, many of them small metalworking industries that depend on the factory's activity.
At the beginning of November, some 50 workers at the La Banda branch, in Santiago del Estero, also occupied the facilities over wage arrears, breaches of labor agreements and lack of health insurance coverage.
In Las Varillas, the concern goes beyond the claim for unpaid wages. Pauny is one of the main sources of employment in the town and represents the continuity of an industrial tradition born with Zanello, which the workers, together with other actors in the community, managed to recover after the 2001 crisis. Now, with a plant occupied, wages unpaid and a voluntary retirement program that could reach 150 workers, the future of the historic tractor factory is once again in a situation of extreme uncertainty.
