Dockworkers strike at Brazil's biggest port
Dockworkers, who began a strike on Wednesday at Brazil's largest port, said they would continue the stoppage until their demands over working conditions were met, while the government threatened to fine them if operations were halted, reported Reuters.
The stoppage at Santos, a key exit point for the country's most valuable farm commodities such as soya, sugar and coffee, threatens to delay shipments of those goods, although loading continued on Wednesday. Recent, similar strikes have tended to be resolved within a day or two without causing major disruption.
The workers are striking over a move by the government to enforce rules imposing a minimum gap of 11 hours between shifts.
Dockworkers are demanding the rules be delayed and say they would restrict double shifts to exceptional circumstances, cutting dockworkers' incomes.
"We want a delay. The strike will continue until we have an answer from the operators," said César Rodrigues Alves, acting president of the Santos dockworkers' union.
The Santos division of the public prosecutor's office said late on Wednesday it would fine the union US$49,600 per day if less than 70 percent of the workforce remained on the job.
The prosecutor's office said the rules were meant to protect worker health and safety and serve as a means of distributing available shifts more fairly among workers.
By Wednesday evening, around half of the ships berthed at public terminals were able to load, Santos port authority spokeswoman Celia Souza said, after about two-thirds had been unable to in the morning.
Those taking on liquid loads such as orange juice and oil products had been able to do so without interruption since they are fed by pipelines that do not require manual labour.
Brazil is the world's No1 producer of coffee and sugar and the harvest for both is in its early stages. Raw sugar is exported in bulk, while white sugar and coffee is largely bagged and packed into containers. The soy harvest has just finished, making this one of the peak flow periods for the crop.