Brazil Taking Steps to Halt Wave of Strikes

A wave of strikes has paralyzed Brazilian ports, crippled industries and banks, closed schools and hospitals and severely battered the government’s shaky economic program.

Finance Minister Mailson Nobrega said Thursday that some of the strikes are “absurd, violent, bordering on insurrection” and “will bring additional uncertainty for the economy, additional uncertainty for investment, additional difficulties for the creation of jobs that are important to workers.”

President Jose Sarney, trying to hold the line against wage increases that would undermine his inflation-control policy, announced emergency measures Thursday aimed at limiting work stoppages.

One measure will require approval by at least one-third of a union’s assembled workers before the union can call a strike.

To brake inflation, Sarney froze most prices and wages in January, and only minor adjustments have been made since then. But unauthorized price increases have fueled a resurgence of inflation, which rose 5% in March.

Unions, complaining that wage increases have lagged behind inflation for more than a year, demand pay increases of up to 100%.

With presidential elections scheduled for November, the political element is also strong in the strike movement. There have been more than 400 strikes this month and 1,300 so far this year, according to the government.

This week, port workers throughout the country joined a two-week-old strike by stevedores at Santos, Brazil’s largest port, threatening to cut off most exports.

“The situation is dramatic,” said Roberto Fonseca, vice president of the Brazilian Exporters Assn. “All arteries of trade are obstructed.”

Other strikes involve employees at more than 20 federal universities and associated hospitals, automotive workers in Sao Paulo, teachers and policemen in the state of Rio de Janeiro, and federal banking employees. Private bank employees on strike earlier in the week settled for pay increases of 30% to 42%.