The Superior Labor Court (TST) judged the postal workers’ strike, which completed two weeks, this Tuesday (30), as not abusive, and maintained the validity of the pre-existing clauses in the Collective Labor Agreement (ACT) of the category from the previous year (2024/2025), including the determination of a 5.10% adjustment on salaries, based on inflation over the period of one year up to the base date.. The terms were defined by the minister rapporteur of the process, Kátia Magalhães Arruda, who was accompanied by the majority of the other ministers of the Specialized Section of Collective Disputes (SDC) of the Labor Court.
Despite the declaration of legality of the paredista movement, workers who have stopped their activities will have their absences deducted from their salaries, in amounts that will be divided into three monthly, successive and equal installments, calculated individually for each employee. The strike began on December 16th.
The decision ended the trial of the category’s collective dispute, putting an end to a salary campaign whose base date (reference for adjustments) was set on August 1st. With the end of the trial, workers should resume work normally this Wednesday (31). Last week, the rapporteur had already determined that 80% of Correios staff were maintainedgiven the essential nature of the postal service. The strike was concentrated in nine states: Ceará, Paraíba, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.
The mobilization of postal workers occurs amid a delicate moment in the state-owned company’s finances, which is accumulating billion-dollar deficits. Yesterday, the company announced a plan to close up to 6 thousand branches and lay off around 15 thousand employees. The company, whose capital is 100% public, is also studying an investment of R$12 billion through credit lines opened in the country’s largest banks.
“The result reflects what we had been working on, demanding from the company, and we portray all of this here within the TST, which is the guarantee of our rights, with the guarantee of salary replacement. Of course, we did not have, in full, everything we expected, but it was a judgment that reflects the expectations of the category. We spent the last 16 days saying that the category is not responsible for this crisis”, stated Emerson Marinho, general secretary of the National Federation of Workers in Postal and Telegraph Companies and Similares (Fentect), one of the leaders in charge of negotiations with the Correios management.
Wanted by Brazil Agencythe company did not comment on the TST’s judgment until the report was closed.
The maintenance of pre-existing clauses in the previous collective bargaining agreement will be in force for one year, in the form of a normative sentence from the TST, until the base date of August 1st. After that, however, they will no longer be valid and unions and the company will have to negotiate from scratch, starting in 2026. This scenario may favor the intention of the company’s management to make employment contracts more flexible, with a reduction in benefits as a way of cutting even more expenses.
