SAO PAULO – Brazilian authorities will maintain the status quo on labor regulation after a move to shift responsibility for assigning casual dockworkers spurred a strike at the Port of Rio last week.
Labor appointments have been in the hands of trade unions for decades and are likely to remain so for the time being. The move also has helped to defuse a potential crisis in Santos, Latin America’s largest port.
Port operations have returned to normal after a compromise was found over the weekend on issue of assigning casual workers to their jobs. The deal, after a two-month transition period, transfers the power to appoint workers to a labor pool called OGMO. In practice, however, the OGMO will have to delegate its powers to the trade unions for an undetermined period.
‘This is not ideal but this is the best deal we could have gotten,’ said Juan Clinton Llerena at the port commission of the Brazilian Association of Private Terminals (ABTP) in Rio.
Some industry officials criticized the agreement.
‘OGMO will have to pay for this. So, it will turn out to be more expensive than it already is, and it will not change anything,’ said Hans Peter Zint, operations director at the private container terminal Santos Brasil at Santos.
The local port authority Codesp recently imposed a new dredging fee, which has inflated shipping lines’ costs, although some of them already have appealed the measure.
