Brazil's postal reforms become law, as strikes continue
Brazil’s president Dilna Rousseff has signed postal reform legislation into law, allowing the country’s postal service to expand its operations at home and abroad. The new Law 12,490 was published in Brazil’s Official Gazette yesterday, as strike action continued across the country with no sign of compromise over a new labour deal.
The legislation reforms, which passed through Congress earlier this month, will allow the Brazilian Post and Telegraph Company (ECT) to expand into new services including electronic mail, integrated logistics and new financial services.
The new law also grants corporate-style powers for ECT, allowing it to establish subsidiaries, form partnerships with the private sector, acquire stakes in other companies or buy other companies outright.
The reforms will also, for the first time, allow ECT to open offices abroad and operate outside Brazil’s borders.
The changes have been undertaken to help modernise Brazil’s postal service and avoid “stagnation” in the face of competition from large multinational logistics companies.
The Brazilian government has an eye on what is happening in the United States, and is keen to avoid the kind of massive cutbacks the US Postal Service is being forced to make, it said yesterday.
In a statement, ECT said the reforms would provide it with the “business tools to compete with more responsive and efficient service delivery for the entire population”.
The state-owned company said: “The Post Office will operate abroad and in the following postal services: electronics, financial, and integrated logistics. It may establish subsidiaries, or acquire controlling stakes in existing companies, and establish business partnerships that add value to our brand and its service network.”
Strikes continue
The new postal reforms come as Brazil’s postal workers continued their strike action this week, with no compromise from either side over a new collective bargaining agreement.
Brazil’s communications minister Paulo Bernardo said yesterday that since ECT has a monopoly on postal services, its workers “must take responsibility for the public service customers”.
He warned that the indefinite strike would open the door for competition.
Bernardo said: “The competition is naturally excited to see if it can take a chunk of the market, so you have the responsibility on behalf of everybody when it comes to strengthening and further modernising the post office.”
The minister said ECT was doing an “excellent job” in fostering products in new areas, and eyeing new business abroad, which would take it “to a new level”.
But, he stressed the government line that days taken off by striking workers would be taken off their vacation entitlement.
Bernardo said: “I regard the strike as a normal part of democracy, but we have to fulfill our mission to serve the population.”
The postal strike, which began officially on Wednesday, has already delayed the delivery of 2.5 million letters, telegrams and parcels according to the Brazilian media.
Around a third of the postal work force is on strike, with union members holding demonstrations across the country, including in front of the Ministry of Communications.
FENTECT, the National Federation of Postal Workers, said today that strike action is occurring in all 26 of Brazil’s states and the Federal District, including 34 local unions with one remaining union expected to join the strike tomorrow.
Rogério Ubine, FENTECT Secretary for International Relations, said the postal workers were suffering because of government fears of the global economic downturn.
“The Brazilian government does not want to give real adjustment (to wages) for fear of the crisis, but if there is growth in the post office and the country, then we should distribute the wealth through the earnings of workers.”
