BRAZILIAN SEAMEN SAY 14,000 NOW BACK AT WORK

  About 14,000 of Brazil's 40,000
  seamen are now back at work after pay accords with 21 shipping
  companies but the rest are still on strike, a spokesman at
  strike headquarters said today.
      The seamen began a national stoppage on February 27.
      The spokesman, talking by telephone from Rio de Janeiro,
  said 126 ships were strike-bound.
      He added that because of resignations by many seamen there
  were scarcely any crews left on 38 of these ships.
      The seamen have settled in general for pay rises of 120 pct
  with the 21 companies. Talks with the shipowners' association
  Syndarma have been deadlocked over overtime.
      While exports have been delayed by the strike, exporters
  say the problems have been manageable.
      "It hasn't been critical by any means," said a coffee trader
  in Santos, who noted that coffee was still moving on foreign
  ships.
      Economic analysts added, however, that any delay to exports
  served to aggravate Brazil's balance of payments crisis, which
  last month prompted the government to suspend interest payments
  on 68 billion dlrs of commercial debt.
  

