A Brazilian labour court said on Thursday it would grant workers at a Volkswagen factory that went on strike over a week ago an 18% pay raise as they had demanded, Reuters reported.
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The decision by the court is a defeat for Volkswagen, which had been reluctant to sweeten its initial salary adjustment offer of 15.7% to the powerful ABC Metalworkers Union once led by Brazil president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the report said.
Reuters noted that some 14,800 workers at VW’s Anchieta plant in Sao Paulo’s industrial belt went on strike on October 29 for a raise in salary while VW’s Sao Carlos plant, also in the ABC region, was on strike as well and the Taubate plant had been shut down for lack of parts coming from the two ABC plants.
A VW spokesman told Reuters the company expected employees to return to work on Friday and said it would publish an assessment next week of the increased costs incurred by losing the labour dispute with the workers.
The director of the ABC Metalworkers Union, Francisco Duarte de Lima, however, told Reuters that employees at the Anchieta plant should be back to work on Monday after the union assembles on Friday to announce the labour court’s decision the Sao Carlos plant is not expected to go on line again until Monday either.
Reuters noted that thousands of car workers at other companies such as Ford, DaimlerChrysler and Scania also went on strike last week, but have since returned to work after winning an 18% raise to compensate for inflation of the past year.
