Strike Halts Auto Production in Brazil

The assembly lines at some of Brazil’s biggest auto plants came to a halt Monday as thousands of workers walked off their jobs demanding higher wages.

Union leaders said at least 60,000 workers at Ford, Volkswagen, General Motors, Mercedes Benz, Toyota, Honda and Scania went on strike in Sao Paulo state, bringing to a halt the production of 4,000 vehicles a day.

Meanwhile, thousands of oil workers on Monday called off a threatened nationwide strike after accepting the latest wage offer from government-run oil giant Petrobras.

Volkswagen said that most of its 18,200 workers at its three factories joined the auto workers strike, halting daily output of more than 1,700 vehicles and 1,400 engines.

Ford said 6,500 workers at its three production sites were on strike and that the production of 740 vehicles and 600 engines was halted.

Workers want a 10% pay raise while the National Vehicle Manufacturer Assn. has said it won’t go beyond an 8% rise.

“The gap is so small that I am confident an agreement will be reached,” labor leader Paulo Pereira da Silva told reporters.

A spokesman for the manufacturer group was not available for immediate comment.

At General Motors’ plants, 14,000 assembly line workers walked off their jobs in the industrial suburb of Sao Caetano and in the city of Sao Jose dos Campos, 60 miles northeast of Sao Paulo. Citing “strategic reasons,” the company refused to say how many units failed to roll off its assembly lines because of the strike.

In the oil worker dispute, United Oil Workers Federation director Mauricio Franca Rubem said the workers agreed to a wage increase of about 7% and a bonus for higher productivity.

The federation, which represents 35,000, was demanding a pay raise of more than 9% along with compensation for alleged losses resulting from the government devaluation last year of the Brazilian currency, the real.