Photos and original material in Brazilian:
http://www.viasantos.com/intersindical/
Private terminals suffer the first reverse and are fined by the Ministry of Labour for operating without stevedores. ACTION CONTINUES ON THURSDAY, 5 APRIL. COMPANIES QUIT TALKS.
(Jornal O Estado de S. Paulo) - The State of São Paulo regional labour delegate Antônio Funari declared today, 5 April, that the Ministry of Labour interdicted two ships which were operating with irregular labour in the container terminals of Santos Brasil and Libra, in the Port of Santos.
According to him, the two companies were sued and will be allowed to pay fines of R$5,000 per ship. Ministry inspectors carried out spot checks between midnight and 2 a. m. this morning and established that the ships’ cargo was being moved by foreign seafarers, contrary to Brazilian legislation. The Ministry’s initiative was taken in response to accusations by the Stevedores Union, that dock work must only be carried out by port workers.
A dockers’ mass meeting in Mauá square, in Santos city centre, decided on Wednesday evening (4 April) to continue the action in defence of jobs. The failure of the negotiating meeting convened by a section of the Labour Court disappointed workers. Especially because the employers refused dialogue, abandoning the meeting room in 15 minutes, intransigent.
(Jornal A Tribuna) - The impasse in the Port of Santos did not end yesterday, 4 April, at a meeting in the Regional Attorney’s office of the Public Ministry of Labour, in the Capital [São Paulo] due to the intransigence of órgão Gestor de Mão-de-Obra [the Labour Management body Ogmo], which was not prepared to negotiate. Its two directors were at the table talking for barely 15 minutes, leaving the offices of the Public Ministry without discussing the trade unionists’ proposal presented to the Attorneys, which complied with the legal requirements. The stormy exit by Ogmo representatives André Canoilas (President) and Nélson Domingos de Giullio (Operations Director), disgusted the Presidents of the Stevedores’ Union Vanderlei José da Silva, and of the Bloc Workers, João Aristides Saldanha Fonseca. “This is disrespectful of the authorities and workers. It shows that Ogmo does not want to negotiate, it wants to impose,” the stevedores’ leader declared.
Fiesp - The president of the Federation and the Centre of São Paulo State Industries (Fiesp / Ciesp) Horacio Lafer Piva, warns of the consequences of the dockers’ strike and proposes that industries prepare contingency plants to divert the flow of raw materials or export / import products to other Brazilian ports.
Impasse continues in Santos. Court considers strike improper and imposes gigantic fines on unions.30 SHIPS AWAIT MOORING ON WEDNESDAY 4 APRIL.
Mass meetings on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning (4 April) reaffirmed the continuing action in defence of jobs by stevedores and other port workers in Santos. There have been no new confrontations with the Military Police who remain in the city and in all areas of the port. Also nothing has been agreed in the negotiations which took place throughout Wednesday in São Paulo, at the Regional Labour Tribunal. And the action continues, with support from unions of the Port Intersindical (Joint-Union Committee) and lorry drivers. Twelve ships were tied up in port at the end of Wednesday afternoon. Ten, in private terminals, operated without stevedores. Thirty are anchored in the bar of the port awaiting mooring.
Stevedores arrived crying on Wednesday morning faced with the decision of the Labour Court to impose gigantic fines against the unions of R$200,000 (around US$97,000) per day of stoppage. They understood the measures as a means of pressurising the movement which, for the unions at least turned into a strike. The stevedores are not employees of the terminals or the port, they only earn when they are engaged in work and the órgão Gestor [Ogmo, the private company seeking to take over the role of selecting casual workers] does not manage the selection of labour. This is what is blocking movement in Santos. These are the arguments of an appeal which the unions presented to the Court.
According to Vanderlei José da Silva, President of the Stevedores Union,“the employers always turn to the court of the State capital, where judges do not understand the dynamics of port work and take measures similar to those with which they are familiar in relation to factory unions. We are not employed by anyone and so therefore, how can we be on strike? It was the employers and the Court which created this impasse and now do not find the means to resolve it”.
