Brazil Post files for injunction over strike action
Brazil Post has asked the nation’s top labour court to investigate the legality of strike action currently causing delays in 13 states. The state-owned postal operator has requested the Superior Labour Court (TST) to step in and force a suspension of the industrial action that began last week.
Judge Márcio Eurico Vitral Amaro, from the TST’s specialist section on collective bargaining, has been appointed to look into the stoppage led by the National Federation of Post and Telegraph Workers (Fentect) in protest over medical charges faced by employees.
Brazil Post said the protest was over its Health Card programme, which was supposed to provide financial assistance for medical costs, rather than being a full healthcare plan.
The company said it filed an injunction with the TST requesting suspension of the strike and ensuring certain minimum staffing levels in each of its operating units “for the benefit of Brazilian society”.
It now awaits a court date to resolve the action.
Brazil Post said the country’s top labour court has already made a judgement on its healthcare plans last year as part of the back-to-work ruling following partial strike action last September.
It said Fentect, a federation of regional postal unions, had unsuccessfully sought an injunction against the reform of its health plan arrangements.
“As a result of this, Brazil Post believes that this stoppage and the harm it brings to Brazilian society is illegal, abusive, and in contempt of the legal system, seeking to reverse something already decided by the TST,” the company declared in a statement on Tuesday evening.
Brazil Post insisted there would be no change to its current health plan for employees, CorreiosSaúde (PostalHealth) after last month’s transfer of the programme to the management of Postal Saúde, a nonprofit agency formed in April 2013 to independently operate Brazil Post’s healthcare plan.
Staff will not face monthly fees, registered dependents will be supported, and the system will not be privatised, the Post said, adding that co-pay rates will not be changed.
