One argument in favor of the current labor reforms in Brazil is that flexibility allows businesses to adapt to the realities of the market, gain competitiveness, generate economic growth, and therefore increase the creation of jobs. According to recent International Labor Organization (ILO) publications, these types of reforms have not contributed to the generation of employment. They have contributed to the deterioration of the quality of remaining jobs.

Labor Policies and Human Rights

Paulo César Pedrini[1]

The principal objective of the labor reforms that are currently in process in Brazil is to withdraw rights that have been hard-fought and earned by the working class throughout our history.  The current government speaks of the necessity of carrying out reforms or at least continuing reforms that are already in process. We should point out the consequences that these labor and social-security reforms can bring to workers. 

The mail goal of these reforms is to create more “flexibility” in labor laws, which means to eliminate protective norms and workers rights. In 2005, the Lula government advanced a proposal to the National Congress to make labor laws more flexible. Therefore, workers’ laws would not be revoked, but they would become “negotiable.”  

The neoliberal recipe calls for individualization in labor relations.  This would be necessary for businesses to have flexibility towards seeking to be competitive in occupying the market and diminishing the so-called “cost of labor”.  This is the logic of all the labor reforms in process throughout the world.

As such, these reforms intend to separate custody of the State from individual labor relations, to make them more flexible.  This is so that “negotiation” prevails over legislation. The fundamental characteristic of these reforms is the effort to separate the State from the individual labor relations on one side, eliminating and/or making flexible the rights of workers guaranteed by law, and on the other hand to intensify the interference of the State in collective labor relations, always in the sense of restricting the collective actions of the workers.

For this to occur it is necessary to alter the legislation that regulates the system of union representation and negotiation/collective contracting.  This occurs for two motives: to make the flexibility of workers’ rights possible through collective negotiation with central unions, and to allow the State and the central union leadership to control the structure of representation of the workers.          

The reasons to defend these reforms are false, in that they do not correspond to the reality.  Some examples are:

a)     “Reform is necessary because in Brazil the cost of labor is very high, which impedes competition of business.”  Nonetheless, according to economist Marcio Pochmann in his book Labor at the Crossroads, “contrary to various studies, the cost of labor for businesses is not expensive, above all compared to other countries”.  Another common argument is that the cost of workers’ benefits are high, in comparison with the effective salary, and that if these costs could be reduced this would translate into higher salaries.  In relation to this idea, there are international criteria established by the ILO – International Labor Organization, which protect workers’ rights.

b)    Another argument is that flexibility allows businesses to adapt to the realities of the market, gain competitiveness, generate economic growth, and therefore increase the creation of jobs.  According to recent ILO publications, these types of reforms have not contributed to the generation of employment. They have contributed to the deterioration of the quality of remaining jobs.  

Another fundamental question that affects the working class is the continuity of the Social Security Reform. According to the government, these reforms are necessary due to the increase in life expectancy of the population.

During the electoral campaign, President Lula declared that he did not intend to propose changes in social security policies. But the following measures have been discussed:      

-  An end to retirement according to time of contribution; it would change to only include retirement according to age.

-  An end to special retirement for professors, who today are able to retire with five years less contribution (25 years for women, 30 for men). 

-  Discussion in respect to changing rural retirements according to age, which will be 55 years for women and 60 years for men. The idea would be to reduce this “privilege” in relation to urban workers.  

It is necessary for the working class to have a real understanding of these reforms. The workers need to organize in order to stop such proposals, which can eliminate labor rights.