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30 September, 1999Brazilian metal federations report brutality used against workers during their one-day strike.
BRAZIL: As announced jointly in mid-September by the IMF-affiliated CNM-CUT and CNTM-Força Sindical, a series of one-day strikes throughout Brazil in auto assembly and parts plants has gone into motion.
On Wednesday, September 29, 15,000 workers at Fiat Automobile, Betim, Minas Gerais, put down their tools. They are protesting against low wages (Fiat-Betim pays 50% less than in the assembly plant of ABC Paulista), and demanding a new collective agreement.
The reaction, however, of the Fiat management to the work stoppage was to send in their security agents and military police, who roughed up the strikers and caused injuries to 27 of their employees.
CUT President Vicente Paulo da Silva - "Vicentinho" declared that "Fiat made an important strategic mistake in trying to repress the strike and prevent the workers from mobilising. The company will only manage to harm its reputation this way.... This assembly plant pays half the normal wages of the other constructors but are nevertheless selling cars at the market price."
The two metal union federations would greatly appreciate that messages condemning the brutal methods of Fiat management be written to both Fiat and the Minas Gerais state government, at the following addresses:
GRUPO FIAT
Direção do Grupo Fiat
Fax: ++55.31.274.4075
Rua Guajajaras 40 -- 20º
CEP 30.180-910 -- Belo Horizonte -- Minas Gerais
Brazil
GOVERNO DO ESTADO DE MINAS GERAIS
Exmo. Sr. Governador - Itamar Franco
Fax: ++55.11.250.6296
On Wednesday, September 29, 15,000 workers at Fiat Automobile, Betim, Minas Gerais, put down their tools. They are protesting against low wages (Fiat-Betim pays 50% less than in the assembly plant of ABC Paulista), and demanding a new collective agreement.
The reaction, however, of the Fiat management to the work stoppage was to send in their security agents and military police, who roughed up the strikers and caused injuries to 27 of their employees.
CUT President Vicente Paulo da Silva - "Vicentinho" declared that "Fiat made an important strategic mistake in trying to repress the strike and prevent the workers from mobilising. The company will only manage to harm its reputation this way.... This assembly plant pays half the normal wages of the other constructors but are nevertheless selling cars at the market price."
The two metal union federations would greatly appreciate that messages condemning the brutal methods of Fiat management be written to both Fiat and the Minas Gerais state government, at the following addresses:
GRUPO FIAT
Direção do Grupo Fiat
Fax: ++55.31.274.4075
Rua Guajajaras 40 -- 20º
CEP 30.180-910 -- Belo Horizonte -- Minas Gerais
Brazil
GOVERNO DO ESTADO DE MINAS GERAIS
Exmo. Sr. Governador - Itamar Franco
Fax: ++55.11.250.6296