Nationwide strikes led by Brazilian unions to protest President Michel Temer’s austerity measures hobbled public transport in several major cities and closed schools, car factories, banks and other businesses across the country.
Police clashed with demonstrators in several cities, firing tear gas in efforts to clear roadways blocked by burning barricades. Protesters also obstructed the entrances of airports and metro stations.
Temer’s efforts to push through pension reforms have deeply angered many Brazilians.
The proposed legislation would for the first time set a minimum age for retirement, compelling many employees to work more years to receive a pension and reduce payouts in a country were many workers retire with full benefits in their 50s.
Also stirring unrest is a bill approved by the lower house of Congress this week to weaken labour laws by relaxing restrictions on outsourcing and temporary contracts.
But the government argues economic reforms are needed to pull Brazil out of its worst recession on record, chop the swelling budget deficit, reduce record unemployment and modernise the economy.
The strike had a large impact on auto production in Sao Paulo, which concentrates the bulk of the industry in Brazil.
General Motors, Ford Motor, Toyota Motor Corp and Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler AG all halted production, according to company officials, unions and market analysts. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the No. 1 car seller in the country, said it was operating normally.
Union officials said most workers at state-run oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA, known as Petrobras, joined the strike, but the company said the stoppage had no significant impact on output.
“It is important for us to send a message to the government that the country is paying attention to what they are doing, taking away workers’ rights,” said Marco Clemente, head of the 4,000-strong radio and TV workers union in Brasilia as he led a picket line outside the headquarters of state broadcaster EBC.
The 24-hour strike started after midnight yesterday, ahead of a long weekend with Labour Day on Monday.
By early afternoon yesterday it was difficult to gauge just how widespread the stoppage was, but the streets of several major cities showed noticeably less traffic, and Globo TV reported strikes hitting all but one of Brazil’s 26 states.
The benchmark Bovespa stock index was up nearly 1% while the nation’s currency, the real , edged 0.2% lower as investors assessed the impact of the strike.
In the capital Brasilia, authorities boarded up windows of government buildings, fearing disturbances, which typically intensify after sundown.
Violent protests have occurred repeatedly during the past four years amid political turmoil and corruption investigations that uncovered stunning levels of graft among politicians.
Nearly a third of Temer’s Cabinet and key congressional allies came under investigation in the scandal this month, and approval ratings for the president, who replaced Dilma Rousseff last year after her impeachment, have fallen even further. His government recently drew an approval rating of 10%, according to one opinion poll.
Rousseff’s Workers Party grew out of the labour movement, and her allies have called her removal for breaking budget rules an illegitimate coup.
“Temer does not even want to negotiate,” said Vagner Freitas, national president of the Central Workers Union (CUT), Brazil’s biggest labour confederation, said in a statement. “He just wants to meet the demands of the businessmen who financed the coup precisely to end social security and legalise the exploitation of workers.”
Marcio de Freitas, a spokesman for Temer, rejected the union’s criticism, and said that regardless of the strike there was “no turning back” from reforms.
He said the government was working to undo the economic damage wrought under the Workers Party governments, which had the backing of the CUT.
“The inheritance of that was 13mn unemployed,” he said. “The government is carrying out reforms to change this situation, to create jobs and economic growth.”
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