6 September, 2010
Latin America’s largest company by market value, Petrobras, was hit hard by a one-day warning strike on 3 September. Eighty percent of ICEM-affiliated Federação Única de dos Petroleiros’s (FUP) 35,000 members shut refineries, distribution terminals, offshore platforms and rigs, and administration offices across Brazil last Friday in a stern message to the largely state-owned company that it will not be shortchanged in current negotiations.
In a statement, the FUP umbrella grouping of unions – by far the largest at Petrobras – said workers’ intent was to “interrupt the main operations, keeping only the essential activities operating for the maintenance and security of equipment.”
The union was angry that Petrobras had granted large bonuses to senior managers while negotiations were in progress, and then suddenly halting talks.
Some seven refineries in Brazil stopped producing, as did 30 offshore drilling platforms and countless other facilities. FUP is seeking the Brazilian inflation rate from September 2009 to August 2010, or 5%, and also seeks productivity pay totaling 10% for undertaking training and development programmes.
The union federation also wants guaranteed safeguarding of labour standards and establishment of a national forum as a dialogue platform to discuss structural changes with management over health, safety, and the environment.
The company’s response to the warning strike was that it would conduct an “open and transparent” set of negotiations with workers’ representatives.
The warning strike came on the same day that Petrobras announced it would conduct a massive stock offering in order to raise US$64.5 billion in capital funds.