BRAZIL
Written by Metalworkers Union of São José dos Campos
Monday, 24 August 2015 18:06
Hearing result is submitted to the workers assembly and is approved.
After more than three hours of conciliation hearing, the Metalworkers Trade Union of São José dos Campos, affiliated to the CSP-Conlutas, and General Motors have reached an agreement which leads to the cancellation of the 798 sackings announced this month by the automaker. The result of the hearing, which took place this Friday, August 21, at the Regional Labor Court in Campinas, must still be voted by the workers.
The proposal provides that all workers who had been dismissed are included in a lay-off for five months. When they return, if there are dismissals, they will receive four nominal wages as severance payment. If the employee who was suspended from work through the lay-off prefers, he/she can be dismissed from the company’s staff in advance, then receiving the amount related to the five-month lay-off plus the four-month severance pay.
GM will also open a Voluntary Dismissal Program (PDV), and the number of workers adhering to the program will be deducted from the redundancy workers reckoned by the company.
The automaker is committed to making no retaliation against strikers. The 15 striking days will not be subtracted from the wages. Half of them will be paid for by GM and the other half will be offset by the workers.
The meeting to vote on the proposal took place this Monday, 24, at the beginning of the first and second shifts (5:30 am and 14:30) [1].
The automaker had dismissed 798 workers, by telegram on August 8. The layoff has led metalworkers to set off on an indefinite strike to pressure the company to open negotiations and cancel the dismissals.
The Trade Union has also begun a wide campaign aiming at the safeguarding of employment summoning the federal, state and municipal governments to settle the dispute so that the dismissals were canceled out of trial.
Especially, the Union is demanding that President Dilma Rousseff signs a Provisional Act ensuring job stability for all workers.
“This week the government has taken one more measure in defense of businessmen, releasing credit to benefit the automotive sector. This kind of initiative does not protect jobs. What we need is job stability, reduction of working week to 36 hours, prohibition of profits remittance abroad and nationalization of companies that dismiss workers. The struggle of the metalworkers of São José dos Campos is an example for workers of all automakers”, said the president of the Union, Antonio “Macapá” Ferreira de Barros.
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Notes:
[1] – The workers at General Motors (GM) in São Jose dos Campos approved the agreement and ended the strike.