Santos, 29 September 1998
The Law 8.630/93, which underpins the major part of the port privatisation process, abolished legal devices historically devoted to the labour factor and inscribed in the CLT, leaving deficiencies which penalise thousands of workers, throwing them into social insecurity, a lack of perspectives and subjecting them to the luck of the draw at the negotiation tables with enterprises unequally strengthened by official support and heavy "lobbies", carried out in the main sectors of decision making and formation of public opinion.
In Santos, the unjustified withdrawal of port operations provoked the dismissal of around three thousand workers, one part of whom became detached manual workers registered in the OGMO. These workers, today, fight over rare work opportunities, they have lost social rights which guaranteed them and their families a quality of life, with a minimal purchasing power, a factor of major importance for the dignity and survival of our society.
Available and official information reveals that CODESP intends to proceed with new dismissals at the beginning of next year, on the order of 900 workers, and another 300 to follow, resulting in a remainder of less than 800 employees. They admit, nevertheless, that even this number could be maintained with a predominance of new hirings, presuming salary levels below those currently established.
The contracts for personnel for the leaseholders of port areas, in turn, are very far from approaching the number of those dismissed. And when they are given, they are based on wage levels far below those previously in use in the port, and with personnel outside the OGMO. With the exception of a number of workers tied to SINTRAPORT, all excess representation of port workers suffered great losses.
It must also be said that the majority of unions have not managed, at this moment, to conclude any convention or collective work agreement with the employers, as set out in Law nº 8.630/93. On the contrary, the operators and leaseholders of port areas insist on making contracts marginal to the port environment, in conflict with the principles of ILO Convention 137 and to Law 8.630, worsening the capital-labour relations in the port still further in prejudice to the workers.
The administrator of the port, CODESP, lacking self-defence as it is a State enterprise, has suffered highly damaging losses to its financial health with the accentuated reduction in port tariffs. The state of financial and physical poverty in which it finds itself, while a public inheritance, is being hidden and minimised by the immediate interests of the private sector with the complicity of the Federal Government. The loss of receipts, since the reorganisation of tariffs from October 1996, is over R$200 million so far. The current financial deficit is around R$50 million, suggesting that the company will finish 1998 with a deficit of R$80 million.
These figures cannot stand as normal and acceptable to society in the name of modernity. They represent the intention of demoralising and breaking up the public company in favour of private initiative, which it is anticipated will be limited in the near future to a few economic groups.
The users of the Port of Santos, proprietors of non-standardised goods, have gone before the public to complain that their final costs are equal to or even higher than those established before the tariff reorganisation in force since September 1996. These reductions, in some cases, were of the order of 67%, in the example of Table I - Utilisation of Port Infra Structure - which fell from R$4,42 per tonne in September 1996 to R$1,46 currently. These reductions occured, moreover, after the extinction of the Additional Port Tariff - ATP - yielding great advantages for the shipowners and operators, in no circumstance transferred to the final price of the goods.
Nevertheless, and even with the published increase in port productivity, the final costs for the users are not compatible with the profits of the operators. In fact, the wooing of freight even appears timid, in view of the sacrifices imposed on workers and on the finances of the port administrative body.
In the general accounts of the port, the first seven months of this year show an increase of barely 5,6% in total freight movements, relative to the same period last year. It gives an indication that there are other factors determining the attraction or repulsion of freight to be held in the famous Santos terminal, not simply the reduction in tariffs and discarding of its workforce.
What took place, in fact, was the cartelisation of operations with the imposition of the Terminal Handling Charge - THC (shipowners' custom duty) - on the port users, directly and abusively contradicting the norms of competition, damaging the users and the national productive sectors. This abusive collection squeezes the small and medium users, at the mercy of the shipowners' greed, because they do not have the means to negotiate prices like some large users. By way of consequence, the workers and the region as a whole which gave away its own flesh, do not become party to the proper increase in freight movement in the port. And, in this way, there has been no creation of employment.
The loss of remuneration for work in the port is determining the direct and violent fall in the quality of life for thousands of workers in the region, with immediate consequences in other sectors of the economy, which multiplies the regional difficulties previously affected by the loss of workers at Petrobras and Cosipa and, more recently, of the civil service.
Calculations carried out for this Inter-union committee lead to the conclusion that the total wage bill of the port workers is suffering a reduction on the order of R$200 million per year, as a consequence of the mass dismissals which have occurred and through the levels of remuneration applied to those remaining.
Over 20 months, 3,300 workers came to be dismissed in CODESP. The company payroll, which comprised 5,300 workers in January 1997, totalled R$24,0 million. In August 1998, this number fell to 1,990 workers, representing a total salary of R$7,45 million. The reduction in salaries in the period was R$16,55 million per month, a number which, projected over a year corresponds to R$198,6 million.
Among those detached workers, now including those of the "capatazia" (Terminal Handling Charge) who departed from the framework of CODESP, the losses are also expressive. The monthly average payment through OGMO for the personnel who work on board, was R$6,5 million in the first 7 months of 1998, against R$7,7 million for the same period of 1997, with a reduction equivalent to 16%. Specifically for the category of stevedores, the numbers are more expressive. For the gross salaries received by all stowage personnel, the monthly average for 1996 was equivalent to R$6,4 million, a number which fell to R$5,9 million for the 1997 average and to R$4,5 million for the average of the first 7 months of this year. The losses in 1998 are 25% compared with 1997 and 30% with 1996. It can be estimated that in a 12 month period, on average, the reduction of the wage total in this category would reach R$24,0 million over a year.
Both for CODESP, as for the detached workers, it must be taken into consideration that freight movement in the port has risen from one year to another, although not significantly.
This deterioration in the purchasing power of workers and total salaries originating from the labour factor in the port is already causing a dangerous impact on the city of Santos and the region, whose economy, in great measure, is based on port activity.
In fact, the port model in force is clearly causing unemployment without attention to alternatives for the workers involved, which provokes, to a growing degree, highly negative social effects.
The construction of commercial offices of all sizes can be seen in the city, as well as other service establishments previously maintained with the participation of consumers directly or indirectly tied to the port.
The unions of port workers, since Bill 08/91 was forwarded to the National Congress in 1991, have moved over a period of time and at a national level, to present suggestions and amendments which would have resulted in a standard capable of giving Brazilian ports great efficiency, based on the principles of social justice. In truth, it was linked to an unequal and immense battle in Brasilia, because the material was unknown to the great majority of congressmen, and the weight of employers' "lobbies" ensured that the vote went the right way.
It fell to the union leaders, not infrequently, to alert congressmen and the nation to the national interest, principally that of the small and medium producers, of the users with less economic and political clout as well as the regional industry active in the port. The signs of unemployment in the country were already appearing in the statistics, demonstrating that the port reform would aggravate this framework and weaken the negotiating power of the workers. It was a highly destructive period which, unfortunately, has not ended for the union leadership. Set up as authentic extinguishers of their respective social frameworks and those of their families, having to confront the cunning attacks of their own Government, in the example of the publication of Regulation nº 94/95 which reduced the role of the port area, the union leadership have procured solutions which minimised the perverse effects of the law.
In this sense, they do not accept and repudiate second rank to those who have made politics and sought to assure privileges, an affirmation which confounds public opinion concerning the suitable reason for unions' existence, so long as they leave the field of action free for management power, naturally enriched with legal favours, as exemplified by the private terminals now situated outside the organised port area of Santos.
The unions comprising this Port Inter-union committee conclude that the Federal Government is smaller than the economic forces which now run the port, handing it over to a few groups and favouring and encouraging the cartelising role of the shipowners, in order to quickly dominate port operations.
By the division of the internal area of the Santos estuary, sectioning the port's own geography and more than a century's history, the Federal Government created a new region of conflict for the manual sectors and also for private investors, whose outcome indicates social and economic losses with wide repercussion.
The relative normalisation of this quarter must take place through revoking Decree 94/95, through strengthening the Port Authority of the Port of Santos, through reaching collective work agreements which recognise and stimulate the value of the workforce, through the implantation of professional refresher courses and by plans which promote the re-growth of the number of port workers.
They are initiatives without which the so-called port modernisation will have the appearance of a successful management contract, but which will disguise, although not forever, tendencies to concentrate economic power, with the victory of the almighty market, to the subservience of the Government and contempt for the conditions of life and the dignity of citizens.
