Read this article in:
21 April, 2002Military police, using batons and teargas, assault workers in front of the Camaçari plant in Bahia.
BRAZIL: On April 12, before the start of the workday, workers assembled in front of Ford's auto plant in Camaçari, Bahia, to discuss wage increases were injured in an unprovoked attack by military police wielding batons and firing teargas. Fifteen workers, including a pregnant woman, suffered injuries serious enough to require treatment at the plant's medical center, and Aurino Pedreira, president of the Bahia Metalworkers' Union, which organises the workers, had to be hospitalised.
The union, a member of the IMF-affiliated CNM/CUT, is trying to negotiate a pay hike for the workers at Ford's Camaçari plant, where an operator's monthly wage is 500 Brazilian reals (US$215), or less than one-third of the BRL 1,800 (US$773) paid for comparable work at Ford's Sao Bernardo do Campo plant, in Sao Paulo. Social benefits for the Sao Paulo workers, such as transport costs, are not offered to the workers at the Bahia plant, and Ford's workweek in Sao Paulo is 44 hours, as opposed to 48 hours in Bahia.
On April 16, workers at the Ford plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo went on a two-hour sympathy strike in solidarity with their colleagues in Bahia, and metalworkers' unions in other regions in Brazil are also supporting the demands of the Ford workers in Bahia.
Messages of solidarity with the Ford Bahia workers in their struggle to improve wages and conditions can be sent in care of the CNM/CUT, by e-mail: [email protected] or fax: (55/11) 3209-9524.
The Bahia plant, with approximately 600 production workers employed by Ford, plus another 1,546 by outsourcers, was inaugurated in October 2001. In May 2002, the company expects to market its first entirely assembled car in this plant, the Fiesta.