Oil Workers Temporarily Suspend Strike in Brazil

In Brazil, oil workers suspended their strike Thursday after 19 days, while state oil company Petrobras promised to start a round of negotiations with the unions.

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The decision was taken after a council of the Single Federation of Oil Tankers (FUP) meeting and they warned that if negotiations with the state oil company do not meet the demands of the workers, the union will resume the strike again.

The FUP said that the decision to interrupt the strike also corresponds to the progress in Petrobras' management regarding the negotiations with the workers, however they expressed that “the fight does not stop, the struggle is continuous.”

They also said that the negotiations will take place under the intermediation of the Superior Labor Court (TST) and representatives of the Public Ministry of Labor.

“It was a great achievement for our oil brigade. The negotiation and the strike are in the DNA of our organization and we made it very clear that our collective agreement was being violated and that we have to negotiate in some area," Petrobras' union leader, Tadeu Porto, said.

The FUP also called to defend Petrobras, since that means fighting for national sovereignty, labor rights defense for Brazilians, industrial and technological development as well as environmental security and energy sovereignty.

The strike against Petrobras executive board began on Feb. 1 as a protest for the massive lay-off that was carried out despite a collective convention reached between the workers and the head of the state-owned oil company.

Workers' union denounced the mass dismissal of at least a thousand workers, which Petrobras executive board denied by admitting the responsibility “only” for 400 affected employees. The divergence in figures is something that continues to be debated between the two sides.