The 21st Day

So the Greve (strike) is on it's 21st day... And it's been a pretty interesting experience for me. I have ben told some horror stories about the strike, but everyone seems to agree that this is a pretty weak strike. There are hardly any strikers...just a few people to hold the sign. I think everyone is just treating this as a vacation. Now, I am getting my information from a variety of sources...none of whom speak perfect English and none of which are the same. But from what I gather...the strikers are asking for 6 hour work days instead of 8, but with no pay decrease...aparantly this is the equivalent of a 12% raise...which seems pretty high. Well last week everyone seemed convinced that the strike was going to end on Thursday or Friday. On Thursday they had a meeting (like everyday) and from what I understood the result was that the strikers were suppose to return to work on Friday, but didn't. They were offered 9% and everyone was convinced that they would accept (let me remind you that this is a national strike, and they workers in my building really can't do anything about it...in fact, Danyel, one of my students is a top advisor to the President of all of Caixa, and he explained to me...that she can't even do anything about it, because it is a federal bank, and the government has to agree to the workers demains...even though it is the company that is lossing money by not having any employees these last few week. It doesn't really make sense to me.) Well anyway, they didn't accept the 9%, so on Monday, the government removed their offer and are now offering nothing! So we are back to square one, and everyone is getting impatience so tension is a little high. The strikers latest tactect is to use giant blow horns and blow then in the faces of people trying to enter. I got there early enough to avoid it yesterday, but I saw some friendly fire on my way out. The other strikers were complaining to the man with the airhorn that he is blowing it too often. Today as I started to approach the building I noticed that they had tied a sign all the way across the front of the entrance...hum...I thought, this should be interesting. There was a man going in a little ahead of me, so I paced myself to see what would happen. The man just tore the sign down with two yanks and the the strikers started moking him and clapping like "way to go old man, you got the sign down." I was really hoping that they wouldn't be able to put it back up before I got there. Well, one man was tying up one side and the other man was just holding it and leaning against the other post. I thought for a breif second of just turning around, but it was a little too late. I was already making good stride towards the door. I found myself right infront of the man holding the sign...I said, in my most humble tone possible "desculpe senhor." (excuse me sir.) Just looked at me and just said, "well you are going to have to go under," (in portuguese of course...or a least that's what I think he said) as he lifted the sign a little and I crawled under. Tomorrow should be interesting. I haven't felt the least bit threatened yet because the security guards hired by Caixa out number the strikers 3 to 1.