Thousands of Brazilian metalworkers at Volkswagen, Ford and other vehicle plants voted to strike on Tuesday after rejecting a pay deal from an industry recovering from weak sales and layoffs, Reuters reported.
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According to the report, Brazil’s powerful ABC Metalworkers union said up to 32,000 workers would take part in strikes at Volkswagen, Ford and Scania plants on Wednesday and also disrupt work at a Mercedes Benz factory.
“Tomorrow [Wednesday] Volkswagen, Scania and Ford plants will be closed,” a spokeswoman for the union once led by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told Reuters.
ABC told the news agency that employers offered workers a pay increase of 15.7% based on inflation beginning this month while the spokeswoman reportedly said the union was after a pay increase of around 20% that would include a real increase in pay.
Reuters noted that Brazil’s vehicle sales fell 8% in the first half of 2003 when consumers stayed away from dealerships as four-year-high interest rates pushed the economy into recession.
Workers at Volkswagen’s Sao Bernardo do Campo plant staged stoppages in August to protest the company’s plans to axe thousands of jobs, the report added.
Reuters said the sector has since recovered as falling interest rates and tax cuts helped drive consumers back into showrooms and stir the Brazilian economy back to life.
The report said the ABC union has promised indefinite strikes at the plants in the state of Sao Paulo until a pay deal is reached and added that the industrial action may spread to other companies – metalworkers at a General Motors plant have authorised strike action, a GM spokesman told Reuters.
