You are Luciana Ferraz, Director of Human Resources at Metalúrgica São Bernardo (MSB), an auto-parts maker near São Paulo. The metalworkers' union has just sent its demands for the collective agreement that expires on 31 March, and the first session is on 17 February. Before you sit down, you must decide how the company opens.
The situation
Tuesday, 3 February 2026. SINTRAMEC, which represents about 90,000 metalworkers in the region, wants an 11.2% wage increase, a working week cut from 44 to 40 hours with no loss of pay, and a joint Health Committee funded by the company. Two of MSB's last three agreements ended in stoppages: three days in 2020 and eight in 2022. Your team puts the chance of a stoppage this time at 65%, and its index of union trust stands at 30 out of 100.
MSB makes suspension and steering components for the carmakers of the ABC industrial belt: about 4,200 people, 3,600 of them in production, across three plants. Revenue is BRL 1,840 million a year, EBITDA BRL 147 million (8.0%), and total labour cost BRL 498 million. Its largest customer has notified a 6% cut in the price it pays, effective in eighteen months.
MSB trails comparable plants on every labour measure: 87.4 units per operator per day against about 108; absenteeism of 6.8% against 3.9%; voluntary turnover of 22% against 9%; 34 lost-time accidents in a year against 18. Finance estimates that absenteeism costs BRL 34 million a year, turnover BRL 28 million, that closing the productivity gap would be worth BRL 68 million a year, and that a seven-day strike would cost about BRL 48 million. The average production wage, BRL 4,820 a month, is 7% below the sector; inflation is 4.8%.
The CEO has given you two jobs MSB has always run separately: close the agreement without a strike, and lift output per worker. You must choose how MSB sits at the table, with a package combining wages, working conditions and shared gains or with a negotiation centred on the wage figure, and the increase it opens with, anywhere from zero to 11.2%. The working draft says 4.8%, the rate of inflation. The CFO wants a number by Friday.