Recent News Brazil Dock Strike Adds Pressure Against Ports Reform Bill
Stevedores at Brazil's three main ports walked off the job to protest last-minute changes to legislation aimed at modernizing the country's port system by opening up to more private initiative. The strike began at 1 p.m. local time (1600 GMT) at the ports of Santos, Paranagua and Rio de Janeiro, as the reform bill was being debated in the lower chamber of Congress in Brasilia. Stevedores say legislators are breaking an agreement to allow direct negotiations for hiring of workers with their unions or through a centralized hiring agency known as the OGMO. "They are interfering with the agreement we had and left it out of the bill," the president of the National Stevedores Federation, Wilton Ferreira Barreto, said by telephone. Another top stevedore union representative, Cesar Rodrigues Alves, told Reuters the strike was likely to persist until a favorable outcome was found. An evening congressional session could still resolve the issue on Tuesday, he said. www.hellenicshipp...     (3 days ago, by arnekiel )