Brazil's Ford workers on anti-strike

When workers at the Ford Motor Company factory in Sao Bernardo, in Brazil's industrial heartland, last went on strike in 1990, they smashed up cars in the car park and vandalised the bosses' offices.

This time they are playing dominoes and asking for a pay cut.

"We know that the carmakers are suffering, so we are prepared to talk about pay cuts," said Mr Luiz Marinho, president of the local car workers' union. "We have to preserve these jobs."

Facing a deepening recession and a 20 per cent fall in car sales last year, Ford laid off 2,800 workers from the factory just before Christmas, nearly half the staff. For the past four days the once-militant workforce has responded by ignoring the company. At 7 a.m. each day they have turned up for work as if it were just another day.

The company has let everyone enter, fearing violent scenes if it tried to bar the 2,800 workers. But the machinery has been turned off and the factory left at a standstill. The workers spent yesterday playing cards on the assembly line. They call it an "anti-strike".

The Ford stand-off highlights the two key facts of life in Latin America's largest economy, the suffocating effect of high interest rates on consumer activity and the growing fear of unemployment, which is already at record levels as the country slides into a recession.

There is also the still-distant prospect that a long-drawn-out industrial dispute in an area known for political radicalism could spark broader social unrest if the economic downturn is particularly sharp.

The Workers Party (PT), Brazil's main left-wing opposition, was born there during a series of industrial disputes in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But the optimistic class-war rhetoric of that era has been replaced by a weary pragmatism. "People used to be very aggressive towards the management," said Mr Aldemir, one of the 2,800 laid-off workers. "But today they are behaving like angels. Unemployment has scared them."

At the nearby Volkswagen factory, the workers agreed in December to a reduced working day and a 15 per cent pay cut. In return Volkswagen, the largest carmaker in Brazil, withdrew its threat of wide-scale redundancies.

Ford, which has 10 per cent of the Brazilian car market, said the redundancies were necessary because current production was twice demand.

"We need a sharp cut in costs," said Mr Carlos Augusto Marino, Ford's director of human resources.

The union is concentrating much of its fire on the government. Mr Marino said the high interest rate policy, designed to stabilise the currency, was "murderous".