An outbreak in Azambuja threatens the logistics of half the country

They come from Brandoa, Corroios, São João da Talha, Vila de Franca de Xira, Azambuja and a little bit of all of Greater Lisbon, every day. Thousands, more than eight thousand, are those who daily embrace a large distribution and satellite services in one of the most concentrated logistics operations in the country, in the industrial area of ​​Azambuja.

Here, the warehouses of the largest national distributors form an almost closed corridor along National Highway 3. Almost shoulder to shoulder, workers also arrive at Espadanal de Azambuja, train after train, feeding more than half of these warehouses. Portugal, from Coimbra to the Algarve.

“There are too many people and there is little space.” Premsingh has been working for two years at Sonae, in the so-called Collecting, collecting orders to dispatch to supermarkets. She then arrived from Ludhiana, North India, and now leaves Brandoa daily in the suburbs at 7:10 a.m., long before entering the service at 8:00 a.m. Amandip and Jitendra, formerly from the Indian states of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, left Vila Franca de Xira. “The next train has a lot of people, but this one still doesn’t have that many.”

Precautions are possible. Even in full carriages at 7:40 am, workers almost all arrive with masks, gloves, visors. Since last Monday, the mask is mandatory for anyone traveling on public transport. It is also mandatory and is distributed daily from the beginning of the crisis in the warehouses, almost all those who have Dinheiro Vivo speak.

Christian, a temporary duty electrician at the Sonae warehouse on behalf of DST, is an exception. “The mandatory use of the mask in this job came along with what the government requires, it was this Monday,” says the Brazilian. But there are measurements of temperature and gel alcohol on arrival, he says. The train arrives full. But it is relative. Christian sees the train half full. “We are even getting lucky with this schedule.”

101 sudden infections

Since last week, there is a more compelling reason to add caution. There are more than a hundred infections among workers in the area, in an outbreak detected in a poultry slaughter unit, Avipronto, one of the first companies installed in the seven-kilometer corridor that runs between the cities of Azambuja. and Vila Nova da Rainha. , for now closed by order of the General Directorate of Health.

The Sonae, Auchan, Jerónimo Martins, Staples groups also operate here, but also Salvesen, Torrestir, MT Portugal, Havi, Siva, GL, DHL or Sugal. Of these, Salvesen and Torrestir added four more proven and known cases of infections this week.

Logistics in this area never had to stop during the state of emergency. Now, it reaches the state of calamity with an outbreak that, for the moment, the health authorities do not know how big it will be. Local mayors are scared. The number of 101 confirmed Avipronto infections arrived last Thursday, with 51 more inconclusive results and the rest negative for the 240 employees of the slaughter unit. Local numbers of greedy cases have already been activated, but they also threaten to freeze an industry that does not sleep. Around here, it works 24 hours a day.

Everything seemed fine until recently. “The company, until it stopped, was accompanied by the General Veterinary Directorate, which supervised the slaughter, the packaging, everything and had all the hygiene requirements, all had gloves and all had a mask,” reports the president. of the municipality, Luis de Sousa.

The mayor is not aware of any inspection by the Working Conditions Authority. Dinheiro Vivo also tried to obtain information from the inspection body, but received no response until this publication.

The first cases arose and Avipronto continued working. The Union of Workers in the Agriculture, Food, Beverage and Tobacco Industries (Sintab) says that the heads of the companies, the General Directorate of Health and the health delegate of the region have been alerted for two weeks to the situation. “The organization of the company, not the administration itself, was very skeptical in accepting that there would be cases reported in the week before the issue of the issue for the media,” says Rui Matias.

The closure only occurred after the municipality and parish of Azambuja directly appealed to the government coordinator for the Lisbon and Vale do Tejo region, Secretary of State Duarte Cordeiro. Luís de Sousa and the president of the local board, Inês Louro, say that only this determined that the health authorities ended up forcing the unit to close a week ago.

The Lisbon and Tagus Valley Regional Health Administration (ARSLVT) is laconic in its responses to Dinheiro Vivo. What measures are being taken? What measures are required? What inspection is carried out in the contingency plans of the companies, be it Avipronto or others in the immediate vicinity or throughout the country?

“Within the scope of the public health measures recommended by the Public Health Unit of the Estuario do Tejo Group of Health Centers, we report that all Avipronto employees were evaluated, the disinfection of the entire building was determined and the company remains closed ”Says ARSLVT. “A visit to the facilities will soon be made to evaluate the adoption of corrective measures that will allow its reopening.”

And it shouldn’t be long. For regional public health there is no reason not to reopen. “There are more than one hundred workers in working conditions. I do not see any problem in starting as long as the guidelines are followed, ”said the regional director of health, Mário Durval, in a meeting with the local civil protection center last Thursday.

Complaints, complaints and denials

In the auditorium where the meeting is held, the health official lacks explanations about the importance of hand washing, the use of the mask in closed spaces. A mayor exasperates and says he already has basic information about the ways the disease is transmitted. He wants measurements. The regional delegate adds the importance of companies activating contingency plans that are not “copy and paste” with each other, but that are adequate for their operation, but admits that local public health has “capabilities that are not many.” It is available to advise.

Participants exchange information about daily complaints received from residents through WhatsApp. Many come in second or third hand with the recommendation that successive hands from which the alert began are not identified. Cases of those who allegedly break the quarantine, cases of Avipronto workers called to service. It seems that they are not confirmed. GNR officials at the meeting say they have no secondment to supervise each of the more than 100 local citizens who are under surveillance for contact with infected people.

The phone rings, however. The GNR command in one of the posts in the municipality makes the mayor of Azambuja know the case of an employee, with an inconclusive result in the covid-19 test, called to work and sharing it with the health authorities. “I see that nothing the administration told me it was going to do is being done,” Luis de Sousa tells Dinheiro Vivo. Called to calm Public Health and Avipronto. “It is not for two days that the company goes bankrupt. We have to be cautious. ”

Sintab also wants to know under what conditions the reopening will take place. Rui Matias says that “there is no way to work in the slaughter of birds other than proximity.” “This is the problem. Machines and workers work closely in a continuous process. The organization of the workers’ space will have to be completely resized. Workers cannot continue working 15 centimeters from each other, “he defends.

Contacted, Avipronto did not respond until this publication to questions about the delay in responding to the outbreak or ongoing measures. Just to the question about the workers called to the service, and with the entrance of part of the personnel in the factory to be witnessed also by Dinheiro Vivo at the beginning of Thursday morning. “All the people who are there are implementing measures under the authorization of the General Directorate of Health. They are people who have undergone screening tests and with negative results,” says the company.

A pendulum set by the time of the train.

Where there are also cases, in Torrestir, it was not possible to reach the contact. At the Spanish distributor Salvesen, an operator on the other side of the border passes the call to the Azambuja unit. An employee reports that journalists are ordered to hang up the phone. And hang up.

But worries don’t end with these situations. Local mayors from the various parties want to meet with all the companies in the area to avoid the eventual outbreak of a prolonged outbreak, which calls into question the arrest of more workers and forces, with effects in the supermarkets in the center south from the country.

The mayor explains that the idea is “to meet with the companies’ administrations to find out the main concerns they may have, and also to see the possibility of shift shifts and the issue of transportation.”

Along the Estrada Nacional 3 artery, the pulse of dozens of warehouses hits a common movement. They all enter at 8 a.m., they all start at 4 p.m. or 5 p.m., and so on in successive shifts, which gather workers every day on the same tight pendulum. Local officials want to arrange more CP trains and wagons, which Infrastructure Minister Pedro Nuno Santos has publicly explained does not exist. They also want companies to shift shifts between them and ensure more bus transportation for workers.

Ricardo Mendes, of the Trade Union of Workers, Offices and Services (CESP), also warns about the need to increase the supply of trains on the Azambuja Line, but he doubts about the question of schedules.

“It was possible that among companies, since there is a danger to public health, they could achieve delays. But there is another question. We are talking about workers with social and family life. The deregulation of these schedules could create a major disruption to their lives here, “he says.

The union leader insists on the need to strengthen the PC. “All workers go together on the same transport. We are talking about a large majority of workers in temporary employment agencies without access to company transportation. The only alternative is the train. What we want is for CP to be aware of what is happening and to put more coaches. “

Regarding the supply of trains, CP responds to Dinheiro Vivo that “at this moment the offer of urban and regional trains of CP is 100% of the current schedule and capacity, including the Azambuja line”. And he adds that “since the beginning of this crisis period and the adaptation of the offer, CP has maintained an articulation with the Portuguese Association of Distribution Companies, and sometimes also with Sonae, to guarantee the best possible service for the industrial zone of Azambuja, within the limitations of the pandemic and up to the limit of the available capacity ”.

Sonae trusts the plan

CP specifically mentions Sonae, which employs about 3,000 workers on the Azambuja platform, 700 of which in the food distribution area. But Ricardo Mendes remembers the other large distribution companies installed there. Imagine what it would be like to put an entire large distribution warehouse in prophylactic isolation. In Jerónimo Martins, Sonae, Auchan, talking only about the food part. For the sector it is, it is essential that they continue to operate. We cannot ask another logistics center to fire the workers, which is what has been happening in the stores. ”

Sonae MC, responsible for the food sector, is confident in its ability to respond to risks based on the contingency plan that it has implemented within its unit.

“Sonae MC has outlined a solid contingency plan, fully aligned with the recommendations of the health authorities and certified by the General Directorate of Health, in order to ensure that the level of risk of spread among colleagues is ‘very low risk'” He refers to Dinheiro Vivo, with “the maximum confidence in the heads of all the teams to carry out the described contingency plan.”

Measures include outdated shifts, distribution of personal protective equipment, duplication of buses, placement of staff on remote jobs, temperature measurement since March 24, signs to guide the distance between workers, alcohol gel dispensers and portable sink, and the creation of an isolation zone for conductors in the discharge.

The information is corroborated in almost everything by the workers. At the door of the Sonae warehouses, a driver from Luís Simões prepares to deliver the guides. Explains what has changed in the daily work of those who insure the transport of goods, but not always. “There are many places where we used to enter and now we don’t. It is a radical change. But, in the case of the unloading that I am going to do, I am going to enter the warehouse to unload the car and go out to unload it inside, which we should not do ”.