Brazil's labour unrest is spreading,with many banks, universities and government statistical
offices on strike and more pay disputes looming.
    Bankworkers' leaders said that a national strike launched
yesterday to press for a 100 pct immediate pay rise and monthly
salary adjustments had the support of most of the 700,000
workforce.
    The strike today closed the stock exchanges of Sao Paulo
and Rio de Janeiro.
    For the government the one positive development on the
labour front was the gradual return to work of the nation's
40,000 seamen, who began a national strike on February 27.
    A union spokesman in Rio de Janeiro told Reuters about half
the seamen had returned to work after accords with 22 companies
and that the strike looked close to an end.
    Otherwise the labour scene looked bleak, with the bank
strike posing the most serious problems for Brazil's
crisis-laden economy.
    "If this goes on for more than a few days it will have a
serious effect because normal financial operations will grind
to a halt," said a western diplomat in Sao Paulo.
    Today Brazil's 50,000 university teachers in the 42 federal
universities launched a national strike, with a broad political
demand as well as a pay claim.
    David Fleischer, head of the political science department
in Brasilia university, told Reuters the National Association
of Higher Education Teachers wanted a full congressional
inquiry into what had happened to government education funds.
    He said the universities were strapped for cash and that
the association suspected the junior partner in the coalition
government, the Liberal Front Party, PFL, of using education
funds for projects which had helped their candidates in
elections. The PFL holds the Education Ministry.
    Hardly any sectors of the economy are proving immune to the
current labour unrest, caused by the return of high inflation,
officially pegged at 33 pct for January-February.
    Other possible strikes looming include stoppages by oil
industry workers and social security workers.
 Reuter
