Mar 10 2023 | Nº. 57

Editorial

More potential legal trouble for former president Jair Bolsonaro emerged unexpectedly this week from an undeclared 2021 gift of $3.2 million in jewelry from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. According to O Estado de S. Paulo, the jewels were seized by Brazilian customs officials as a Bolsonaro administration delegation returned from an official trip to Saudi Arabia. A military advisor to then-Minister of Mines and Energy, Bento Alburquerque, stated that he had nothing to declare. After being asked to place his luggage through an x-ray machine, however, his bags were searched. Customs agents then found and seized a pair of earrings, a ring, a necklace, and a diamond watch. Alburquerque then petitioned to have the items released, claiming they were a gift for then-First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro. When customs officials refused to turn the jewels over, government officials—including Bolsonaro himself—made several other attempts to claim the jewels. Subsequent reporting by Folha de S. Paulo revealed that the Saudi government gave several other precious items to Bolsonaro, none of which were made in accordance with Brazilian legislation regarding gifts to public officials. 

Minister of Justice and Public Safety Flávio Dino on Monday said that the Federal Police will look into the case, adding that, according to publicly available information, Bolsonaro’s actions could be criminal. For their part, the former president and first lady deny any wrongdoing. Bolsonaro complained that he was being persecuted for gifts “that I neither asked for nor received.” These allegations are of a piece with other charges that the former president and his family took all sorts of valuables—including prime cuts of meat, shrimp, statues, and paintings—upon leaving the presidential palace in a rush before the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on January 1.

It is not entirely unusual for Brazilian elected officials to treat public goods as private or to blur the line between legal and illegal gifts. For that reason, it seems unlikely that those allegations will add to the former president’s diminished political standing since the insurrection his supporters carried out in Brasilia on January 8. The case of the Saudi jewels, however, is potentially of a different order of magnitude. There have been several allegations of corruption against the former president and his family during his time in office. Depending on what federal investigations reveal, this could be the first involving a foreign government.  

Highlights

• WOMEN'S PACKAGE. On March 8, President Lula announced a package of measures for women in the areas of work, social services, and public security. The president also sent a message to Congress so that Brazil can join the Convention on the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the Workplace under the auspice of the International Labor Organization (ILO). He also presented a legislative proposal that would equalize the wages of men and women working in the same job.  Regarding the economy, he promised to cut interest rates for small businesses. Lula also announced the allocation of the equivalent of approximately US$ 292 million annually for the purchase and distribution of sanitary napkins for low-income women.

• COUP PLOTTERS RELEASED. On International Women's Day, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the release of a group of 149 women who had been arrested and accused of involvement in the failed coup attempt on January 8. All of them were charged with offenses such criminal association and incitement to commit a crime. However, they will be required to use electronic ankle bracelets and spend nights and/or weekends in custody. Another 61 women, who have been charged with more serious crimes, had their release requests denied and will remain in prison. So far, a total of 407 women involved the January 8 invasion of the seats of power in Brasília have been charged with violating the law.

• FEMALE DIPLOMACY. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil appointed the diplomat Vanessa Dolce de Faria to the position of High Representative for Gender. She will be responsible for representing the country in international forums on gender issues and advocating for policies for women within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Faria was the author of the opinion piece published in the latest issue of this WBO weekly newsletter. The article can be read here.

• COUP INVESTIGATION. The Lula administration is committed to preventing the opposition from creating a Joint Parliamentary Commission to investigate the failed attempt at a coup d'état

  on January 8th. Under pressure from the government, at least three congressional representatives have withdrawn their signatures from the request to open the investigation. According to the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, the government has offered second-level administrative positions in the federal bureaucracy to parties and politicians who give up supporting the congressional investigations. The current administration considers that judicial investigations will be more effective than ones carried out by the congress, as they might end up politicizing the investigations and hinder the government’s legislative agenda.

• New partner Friends of the Earth USA announced this Friday (10) its decision to become a WBO partner. The organization, founded in 1969 by David Brower, has been working for over 40 years in defense of the environment and policies that impact people's lives and the future of the planet. With this decision, the number of organizations that work in partnership with the WBO reaches seven. WBO affiliates number 44.

• Brazil Unfiltered In the new episode of Brazil Unfiltered, James Naylor Green speaks with Cecilia MacDowell Santos, specialist on laws, policies, and feminist mobilizations to combat violence against women.

Feature Article

by Stanley Gacek

Can the New Lula Government Restore and Strengthen Labor and Trade Union Rights in Brazil

Given Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s personal history as a metalworker and globally recognized trade union leader dedicated to the cause of worker empowerment, as well as advancing Brazilian democracy in general, there is little question that labor and trade union rights will be a critical part of the agenda for his third term as the nation’s president. In his inauguration speech before the Brazilian Congress on January 1, 2023 he mentioned the necessity of new labor legislation, suggesting at least a partial overhauling of the radically neo-liberal 2017 reform of the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT), approved by the Brazilian Congress during the Temer administration, and applied with an anti-worker and anti-union vengeance during the Bolsonaro regime. The original CLT had been promulgated by President Vargas eight decades earlier. 

What will Lula’s labor policy mean in practice? The inauguration speech of the incoming Labor Minister Luiz Marinho, delivered on January 3, provides us with some clues. (Marinho was the former President of the Metalworkers of the ABC region of Sao Paulo, the former President of the CUT, Brazil’s largest national trade union central, and Labor Minister during the first and second Lula administrations).

Moreover, the transition team for the incoming Lula administration assembled a technical advisory group concerning the future of Brazilian labor relations in mid-November of 2022, composed of the presidents of Brazil’s largest and most representative union centrals, as well as the current and former technical directors of Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socio-Economic Studies (DIESSE (). Based on Marinho’s pronouncements and the themes discussed within the technical advisory group, the most critical objectives appear to be the following:

1.  The creation of a sustainable system of trade union financing, based on a genuine representation of the workers and their approval of “union security” type clauses (taxas negociais) through the collective bargaining process. Such a new regime would not mean a return to the old “imposto sindical”, a tax imposed on all workers by legislative fiat to finance the union structure, and which the 2017 reform eliminated. (Taxas negociais are in full conformity with ILO standards and jurisprudence, but the imposto sindical is not.) 

   Unfortunately, the existing judicial precedents at the national level from both the Superior Labor Court (TST) and the Supreme Federal Court (STF), have invalidated such collective bargaining clauses if exacted from the non-members represented by the unions, meaning that a proposal for a constitutional amendment (PEC) or a new judicial interpretation might be necessary. The combined effect of judicially invalidating such union security clauses, along with the legislative prohibition of the old trade union tax and a provisional decree (medida provisória) promulgated by Bolsonaro to prohibit dues checkoff, even in the case of voluntary union members, created a fatal 90 percent drop in trade union budgets in 2019.

2. Restoring the integrity of the collective bargaining and individual labor contract system, by reversing the most perverse aspects of the 2017 reform, will be a major priority. Necessary measures include: (1) recognizing the legality of prior collective agreements until new accords between unions and employers are reached (ultratividade das normas coletivas); (2) only permitting the legal prevalence of collective accords (acordos) with individual employers over the more general sectorial conventions (convenções), if, in fact, such acordos are actually superior in terms of workers’ wages, benefits and terms and conditions of employment; (3) insuring that “the prevalence of the negotiated over the legislated” established by the 2017 reform does not permit an overall deterioration of income and protections for workers; (4) restoring the former legal guarantee that unions evaluate and monitor the creation and rescission of individual employment contracts; and (5) banning “intermittent,” or zero-hour contracts, in most sectors, which provide no guarantee of a paid hour minimum.

Marinho has pledged to push for a substantial increase in the minimum wage (currently at 1320 reais per month, or about $250), an initiative abandoned by the Bolsonaro regime, making the ravages of inflation even more devastating for the Brazilian working class. He also has promised to shore up and strengthen the Labor Inspectorate in his ministry, critical to combatting child and forced labor in the country, which only increased under the former administration. He also said that new employment protections need to be developed for platform and gig economy workers. 

It appears that the national trade union centrals are on board with the agenda just mentioned. Although President Lula might be able to implement some measures by means of executive decrees and medidas provisórias, much will depend on action from a predominantly center-right Congress (including the ratification of amendments to the constitution and favorable interpretations by the labor and federal judiciary. Obtaining consensus from the major employer organizations, including, for example, the national confederations, also will be critical and not without difficulty. The hope is that the shocking and terrifying specter of an attempted coup d’état on January 8 will sensitize the government’s allies to seek real democratization and stability in labor relations, as well as genuine progress in advancing decent employment opportunities.

Stanley Gacek is a North American trade union lawyer, a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association since 1979, and the former Deputy Director and Office in Charge of the ILO Mission in Brazil, 2011 to 2016. He attended President Lula’s inauguration in Brasilia as an official international guest on January 1, 2023, as well as the inauguration of Labor Minister Luiz Marinho on January 3

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.