Bank Workers in Brazil Enter Second Week of Strike
Written by Agência Brasil
Thursday, 23 September 2004
The bank worker strike which began eight days ago looks like it will continue. It is estimated that 200,000 bank employees have crossed their arms in around 130 cities throughout the country.
Yesterday. an attempt to resolve the impasse failed when management presented the same proposal the workers rejected at the beginning of the strike and the workers rejected it again. At the moment, no new round of negotiations is scheduled to take place.
"Bank workers are strongly organized nationwide. They work in the country's most profitable sector, which charges stratospheric interest rates and could easily meet the worker's demands," complains Wagner Freitas, a union leader.
On September 19, bank workers in Brasília met in a general assembly and voted to continue their strike which began on last week's Wednesday.
The striking bank workers decided that they would have more pickets in front of the main offices of the countries biggest bank, the state-run Banco do Brasil, as well as the private-sector giants, Bradesco and Itaú. They have also scheduled marches at various locations.
The president of the bank workers union in Brasilia, Jacy Afonso, made it clear at the general assembly that the pickets must not interfere with client access to the banks. Court injunctions have already been issued ordering the union to allow clients to enter the banks.
It is reported that in Brasília 95% of the branches of the Caixa Econômica Federal (also state-run) and Banco do Brasil only have ATMs working for clients.
The striking bank workers are demanding salary adjustments to cover losses due to inflation, plus a real increase of 17.68%, along with a share of bank profits.
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention.
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Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.