Anthony Boadle, Alonso Soto – Reuters, 10/5/2012
President Dilma Rousseff wants to regulate strikes by public workers after a series of walkouts by civil servants in recent months paralyzed public services across Brazil.
But the plans, in proposals that could soon be presented to Congress, are drawing fire from unions and labor activists – a constituency that helped put Rousseff into office and that long has formed the bedrock of the ruling Workers’ Party.
The strikes that started in May by civil servants, ranging from university professors to customs and health inspectors to Brazil’s federal police force, so crippled public services that Rousseff wants to better define who can strike and when, and establish collective-bargaining mechanisms to head off future stoppages.
