- Title: Metalworkers hold a nationwide strike to protest against President Michel Temer
- Date: 29th September 2016
- Summary: VARIOUS OF METALWORKERS HOLDING BANNER THAT READS: "WAGE CAMPAIGN 2016"
- Embargoed: 14th October 2016 15:52
- Keywords: strike protest metal workers labour Campinas
- Location: CAMPINAS, BRAZIL
- City: CAMPINAS, BRAZIL
- Country: Brazil
- Topics: Company News Markets,Economic Events
- Reuters ID: LVA00251MDYYR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Dozens of striking metalworkers gathered outside a Toyota plant in Brazil's southeastern city of Campinas - as well as factories around the country - on Thursday (September 29) to protest against their bosses and a proposed reform by President Michel Temer.
Nearly two million workers, represented by the various metalworkers' unions, undertook a series of marches and protests arguing that Temer's current labour reform will hurt them.
In Campinas and its region, which has about 70 thousand metalworkers, meetings were held at closed plant gates to delay the entrance of change of shifts, prolonging 24-hour production stoppages in some industries.
Union workers insist Temer plans to cut wages and pensions and set a minimum retirement age would be harmful.
Sidalino Orsi Junior (Pato Roco), the president of the metalworkers union in Campinas, explained their reasons for holding a strike.
"A mobilization of metalworkers to question the reforms and proposed changes in pensions and the rights of workers the government has said it will undertake. This would be a reform that interferes with pensions, hinders access to retirement, cuts in pension benefits they are doing now and in the reform of workers interferes with what is a right today," Orsi Junior said.
"The main objective (of strike) is that the politicians of this country listen to us. We are calling for a general urgent and necessary strike to reject any measure related to the removal or reduction of our rights," he added.
Temer last week promised political stability for foreign investors to put their money in a country weathering the impeachment of his predecessor and the worst recession in generations.
Speaking for the first time to investors in New York, Temer said he was confident he will have enough backing in Congress to pass unpopular fiscal reforms needed to plug a ballooning budget deficit and regain the confidence of markets in the once-booming economy.
Temer, formally sworn in three weeks ago, has managed to approve minor bills in Congress after months of political turmoil that led to the impeachment of his leftist predecessor Dilma Rousseff.
However, the 75-year-old constitutional scholar is already facing divisions within his widely diverse alliance in Congress with some lawmakers promising to water down the fiscal reforms.
The head of his economic team, Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles, told investors at the same event that he saw "extremely high chances" of approval for a key proposal to cap public expenditures.
Meirelles said a controversial reform to reduce generous pension benefits and set a minimum age of retirement will most likely be approved next year. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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