SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) – Unionized stevedores in Brazil’s No. 1 port of Santos launched a strike on Monday over safety concerns, stopping ship movement and scuffling with non-union dockworkers, a major Brazilian shipping agent said.
Paulo Martinez, a general manager of the shipping agent Safeport, said union members voted to paralyze the port of Santos over alleged violations of safety regulations. Union officials were not immediately available for comment on the stoppage and their complaints.
The port authority scheduled six ships to berth on Monday but they and another 20 ships in the off-port basin were idle, Martinez said.
Santos is the leading export outlet for sugar and coffee, of which Brazil is the leading world exporter. The port accounts for the majority of Brazil’s shipping trade and other major items handled there include fuel oil, wheat and agrochemicals.
Martinez said scuffles broke out between unionized workers and non-union personnel who were arriving for work at 7 a. m. (1000 GMT).
Despite this morning’s blockages by the strikers, Martinez said he hoped nonunion workers would show up for an afternoon shift.
In sympathy with the Santos stevedores’ strike, their counterparts in Paranagua port – Brazil’s No. 2 port and main grain outlet in Parana state – will not unload any ships rerouted from the Santos port, said Paranagua union spokesman Antonio Bonzato. Movement at Paranagua is otherwise normal.
Union and nonunion stevedores have been in competition for work in most of Brazil’s shipping ports. Although nonunion dock workers outnumber union workers about three to one, they only receive 20 percent of the dock work.
“Aside from seriously compromising the port, vessels and foreign trade, the strike is preventing other port workers from doing their jobs,” Martinez said in a statement.
The strike coincides with a reduction of unionized stevedores in the port’s work contracts, which was due to enter into force Monday. The scale of the cutbacks were based on an assessments carried by the port’s labor management body.
The stevedores’ union has been at odds with the government since the passage of a national port modernization law in 1993 that aims to reduce the control of unions over dock hiring policies and the number of dock workers that terminals must use.
