Justice Maurício Godinho Delgado, of Brazil's Superior Labor Court (TST), the country's top labor tribunal, has ordered that at least 60% of the employees of Caixa Econômica Federal stay on the job during the bank's national strike. The measure applies to each branch, in person or remotely, and was granted as a preliminary injunction late on Thursday (24), in a collective dispute the bank filed with the labor courts.

Unions that fail to comply face a daily fine of R$ 100,000. According to Folha de S.Paulo, the order takes effect once the decision is published or the parties are formally notified, and the justice asked that this be done urgently by Friday (25). Caixa had asked to keep 80% of its workforce active; the court granted the request only in part and set a lower threshold.

Timeline

Employees have been on strike since September 10, when they rejected Caixa's proposal to renew their collective bargaining agreement, which expired on August 31. On Monday (21), the unions rejected a second offer. Caixa says talks for the 2026-2028 cycle have not produced a deal, mainly because of a new funding model for the bank's health plan, Saúde Caixa. On Thursday morning (24), the bank took the case to the TST.

What each side argues

Caixa says the strike affects essential services such as interbank settlement and the payment of social benefits, including Bolsa Família, the federal cash-transfer program the bank distributes. It also asked that employees be barred from any activity blocking free access to branches. Godinho Delgado denied that part: he wrote that the law already requires strikes to be peaceful and that there is no sign the movement has been conducted with abuses or excesses.

For the two confederations representing the workers in the case, Contraf (financial sector workers) and Contec (credit company workers), the injunction provisionally keeps the clauses of the 2024-2026 collective agreement in force until a final ruling, a protection for employees. According to the TST, the justice weighed the need to preserve service for urgent demands from clients and society in general without making the constitutional right to strike impossible. He also lifted the secrecy order on the case file.

The full collective dispute will be judged by the TST's Specialized Section for Collective Disputes (SDC) on Tuesday (29), at 2:30 p.m. Until then, the injunction stands.