SANTOS – The dockworkers’ union at the Port of Santos Monday refused to relinquish its power to appoint casual workers and suspended operations.
A workers’ pool known as OGMO was due to assume the responsibility for assigning workers today, but scores of angry dockworkers protested at the offices at dawn, forcing the pool to delay the transition.
“No vessel is operating in the port,” said Dilmar Birkett, operations manager at Zim do Brasil in Santos.
Port operators, the OGMO and the union are meeting this morning to try to find a way out of the current crisis. The union, which has held a 70-year monopoly on labor, lost a legal challenge against the transfer. A court ruled that the OGMO and the union would receive financial penalties if the change were not implemented as required by the port privatization act.
But the union has vowed to resist and has demanded better working conditions.
“The pressure is very strong. This is the most numerous category of workers in the port,” Birkett said.
Stevedores account for more than half of the 11,000 port workers in Santos. Less than half of these would be necessary to operate efficiently, private operators said.
Employees at the OGMO’s headquarters in Santos were given the day off because officials feared a repeat of past protests that turned destructive. Two years ago, dockworkers went on a rampage and destroyed the OGMO’s offices.
