22 June, 2011Metalworkers have rejected management's profit sharing proposal.
BRAZIL: At a meeting at the factory gate on this Friday morning, the 4,600 workers of the Bosch plant in Curitiba, Brazil, rejected management's new proposal for profit sharing or "PLR" as it is known in Brazil, and thereby began an indefinite strike.
Bosch's initial proposal was 4,600 reais for 100% of the targets, but now they have raised that to 4,800. The Union of Metalworkers of Grande Curitiba (SMC), a member of the CNT/FS, a confederation in turn affiliated with the IMF, explained that Bosch offered to increase the proposal to 6,000 reais if the workers succeeded in surpassing 130% of the targets, but given the history of the factory, that is unattainable.
A new meeting will only take place next Monday, June 20, at 5:30 a.m. at the factory gate. Bosch metalworkers are demanding 9,000 reais in profit sharing, with payment of the first instalment of 5,000 reais. They claim that there are companies smaller than that multinational which have agreed to a higher amount of profit sharing than that offered by Bosch.
According to Sergio Butka, President of the Union of Metalworkers of Grande Curitiba (SMC), in recent years Bosch's PLR has not been adjusted in proportion to the increase in the company's profits. "A company that made more than 4.5 billion reais in profits last year in Brazil is in a position to increase the PLR for its workers."
The Bosch plant, located in the Industrial City of Curitiba, is one of the three plants which that multinational has in Brazil. At those plants it employs more than 6,000 workers.