Brazil bank worker strike becomes longest since 2004

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A month-long strike by Brazilian bank workers has become the longest in 12 years, underscoring the impasse between employers and staff amid the nation's harshest recession in eight decades.

In a Tuesday statement, leaders from the Sindicato dos Bancários de São Paulo, Osasco e Região, the nation's biggest banking industry union, said almost 10 rounds of negotiations have yielded no accord.

The National Banking Federation last proposed on Sept. 28 an annual wage increase of 7 percent, implying an inflation-adjusted loss of 1.9 percent for bank workers. No new round of talks has been set, the union said.

Branch service, unlike online and automated teller machine channels, has been partially disrupted, the union said. Workers seek a 14.8 percent hike in their salaries, an annual recurring bonus equivalent to three months' wages and increased food and child care stipends and other benefits.

Usually banks and unions tussle over pay raises at this time every year, followed by short-lived strikes that seldom disrupt branch services.

(Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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