BRAZIL
Written by Zé Maria de Almeida*
Tuesday, 20 January 2015 14:11
The strike of VW at ABC region ended up yesterday morning. The workers’ meeting approved the agreement negotiated by the union with the company that ensured the readmission of the 800 workers made redundant in early January.
The readmission of the dismissed workers is a very important victory of the strike, although there are important problems in the approved agreement.
The agreement is based on the proposal that was rejected by the workers in a meeting that happened in December. It allows a wage freezing in 2015 and the inflation plus 1% next year. The difference of the current proposal from the one rejected in December is that workers will receive in 2015, in the form of bonus, the equivalent value of inflation adjustment (in other words, workers receive in cash without incorporating it to the salary). And a Voluntary Dismissal Plan has started to reduce the workforce.
Workers enthusiastically celebrated the agreement, although it has, as you it can be seen, really bad features. And the workers are right to celebrate, because the readmission of the dismissed workers was the primary goal of the strike and, in the circumstances that this conflict took place, it is a very important victory for the working class. An agreement on better terms would be difficult to achieve, since the very leadership of the union advocated the proposal that was rejected in December.
The struggle continues
Organizing the struggle continuity is the key point of the moment. If the Voluntary Dismissal Plan (VDP) opened now does not reach the number of jobs that the company wants to close, it will resume the layoffs. Workers need to be prepared, and the best way to do it is to pave the construction of the national unity of the workers in the struggle to safeguard their jobs.
Layoffs have been taking place throughout the country. We must unite all in only one fight to ensure employment stability. And the way is striking. It is useless to accept the government’s policy applied all these years: allocating public funds to the big business. And we cannot accept the companies’ blackmail of proposing reduction of workers’ rights and benefits in exchange for the employment as well. This is unacceptable for the injustice it means, but, besides it, it has already been widely demonstrated that accepting reduction of rights does not guarantee employment, because the layoffs occur anyway.
Nor can we ignore and leave without adequate response the attacks made by the government against our rights, such as the measures adopted in December (which attack the unemployment insurance and the period of sick leave) as well as the cuts in the education and housing budget made in January.
Workers need to mobilize themselves against corporate greed and demand from the government a law prohibiting the layoffs; a law prohibiting the multinationals profits remittance to abroad; a law nationalizing companies that make mass layoff and a law reducing the working hours without salary reduction. Along with this we need to demand the government to withdraw the measures taken so far which attack our rights (unemployment insurance and the period of sick leave, etc.).
The government has so far only approved measures to favor companies. Why can’t it take measures to protect the workers?
In this sense the January 28, defined by the unions as a Struggle National Day in safeguarding of employment and against cuts of labor and social rights promoted by the government, is a first and important opportunity for us to give a national dimension to this fight.
If there are layoffs, we will stop!
Another important meaning of the results obtained by the strike is the signaling to the working class in the country. It is necessary to generalize this guidance. Wherever there are layoffs the answer must be striking and demanding, from companies and the government, the maintenance of jobs and the workers’ rights.
* Zé Maria de Almeida is the national president of PSTU.