Heineken workers of the São Paulo city of Araraquara are at a deadlock in their negotiations with the transnational corporation, having failed to reach an agreement on wages. Sirel spoke with Antonio Gonçálves Filho, president of the Union of Food Industry Workers (STIA-Araraquara), to learn about situation leading up to this conflict and the actions the union is planning on the short term.

-Can you tell us about the events leading up to the conflict?

-A little over a year ago the transnational corporation Heineken purchased the Kaiser/Bavaria brewery in Brazil, then owned by FEMSA, and while worker-management relations have always been difficult, in recent months things have become more complicated.

The problem is that the new owners came in promising a bright future: that Heineken would soon be among the 10 largest companies in the world and would become one of the 10 best in Brazil, and so on and so forth. Great promises for the future.

But the workers want to improve conditions now. This conflict started when we failed to reach an agreement with management on our wage increase. The month stipulated for wage negotiations at Heineken was March, and here we are in July and still no raise.

Meanwhile at the company’s plant in Ponta Grossa (Paraná), where negotiations began in April, Heineken has already signed an agreement.

This has generated enormous discontent among the workers, aggravated by the fact that company representatives told union leaders in Ponta Grossa that they refused to improve their offer to Araraquara workers.

This attitude evidences a total lack of respect on the part of management.

-What are the workers asking for in terms of salary increase?

-We’re asking for an 8% raise, taking into account that for the period considered inflation was 6.3%. The company refuses to budge from the 7.3% it offered, plus a meal ticket of 180 reais (US$ 115), against the 200 reais (US$ 128) asked by the workers.

-When is the negotiating committee meeting again?

-The union is issuing a communication to management requesting the reopening of negotiations. We hope this happens sometime over the coming week and we are finally able to reach an agreement.

If Heineken does not improve its offer, though, the 140 workers of the Araraquara plant will be paralyzing activities for an indefinite period of time.