A Snarl in Every Port

Few ports in the world can match Brazil's as places where dock hands earn more and more for doing less and less. No matter how small the cargo handled, union rules in most Brazilian ports require a crew of at least 13 stevedores. For crates weighing more than a ton, dockmen get an extra 30% of their base pay; for deteriorated cargo, 50%; for cold-storage cargo, an extra 100%. They draw 30% extra when it rains, even if the rain stops before they start working. Dusty cargo is worth a 25% bonus; smelly cargo, 35%. And when a ship is loading or unloading gasoline and oil, dockmen collect 50% on top of their regular pay for doing no work at all--they just sit and watch hose crews man the pumps.

Last week at the big coffee port of Santos, 13,000 dockers struck for even more, demanding a bonus on top of a bonus. Up to last December they received a yearly Christmas dividend equivalent to one-twelfth of their total earnings during the year. Then the federal government decreed that all Brazilian workers should receive a similar Christmas gift. The dockers reasoned that this entitled them to another bonus; the port concessionaire at Santos said no. Dockmen also demanded a 30-day paid vacation each year, full pay for days they are on strike, and a 20% "shame" bonus for hefting such cargoes as toilet bowls and sanitary napkins. After three days' idleness, they settled for a 20% pay boost, as well as regular pay for the three days' work they missed.

In Ilheus, Brazil's biggest cocoa port, some 180 stevedores were in the seventh week of a strike called to increase the size and pay of stevedore gangs that load cocoa aboard ships. The demands would raise the handling cost for a ton of cargo to $49 (v. $12 in New York) and price Brazil's cocoa right out of world markets.

For all the money they demand and pull down, Brazilian dockers get precious little work done. Along the Brazilian coast, a ship often needs several weeks to dock, unload, load and steam away again. At Santos recently, one ship was 60 days loading 16,000 tons of corn. By the time the ship finally weighed anchor, kernels of corn that had trickled into deck crevices had sprouted into vigorous plants. As port costs spiral, more and more foreign ships steam past Brazil's congested harbors, and dockworkers are now beginning to complain about lack of work. Their inevitable reaction: strikes for more pay.

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