Brazil's Post Office seeks judicial mediation of labour dispute
Brazil’s Post and Telegraph Company (ECT) is taking its dispute with national postal union Fentect to the country’s top labour court. Postal management said today, as strike action continued for a 17th day, that they had exhausted all direct attempts to deal with the Federation of Post and Telegraph Workers over a new collective bargaining agreement that would affect about 60% of the 110,000 work force.
The matter will now go to the Superior Labor Court in Brasilia for a judicial mediation.
Strike action has been ongoing since September 14, and although the proportion of striking postal workers has dropped from a third to a fifth of the work force since the start, ECT has had to mobilise extra workers and increase use of overtime to reduce service delays.
Negotiations between Fentect and the union resumed earlier this week, with a two-hour meeting between the two sides held on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Attorney General of Labour, mediated by the Ministry of Labour.
This week, ECT has increased its pay offer from a R$50 increase to a R$80 increase in salary per month (a 9.9% pay increase according to ECT), while cutting its offer of a one-off bonus from R$800 to R$500. The union did cut its demands to a $200 per month salary increase.
To bridge the gap on the pay demand, ECT has been offering extra benefits and discounts for workers.
Sticking point
Wednesday’s meeting saw more acceptance of ECT’s pay proposals, but continued resistance to punitive measures against striking workers
Following Wednesday’s meeting, the Ministry of Labour said the union was beginning to accept the financial side of the ECT proposal, but the key sticking point was the management’s insistence that striking workers should have their strike days taken off their annual leave entitlement.
The ministry’s national coordinator for the freedom of association, Ricardo Brito Pereira, who mediated the meeting, said he believed the two sides could resolve the situation.
“An agreement can be made to resolve this impasse, so that work can resume as soon as possible,” he insisted.
Talks also took place between the union and ECT yesterday, at ECT headquarters in Brasilia, with discussions of a compromise deal in which strike days would be discounted from leave entitlement at a rate of one day per month.
The deal was ultimately rejected by Fentect, which urged regional postal unions to follow suit.
Today the Brazilian Post Office said it was taking the matter to judicial mediation.
“In the Superior Labour Court, the Post and its employees will have another opportunity to finalise an agreement in a conciliation hearing with judicial mediation,” said ECT in a statement.
