Josué Gomes and the myth planted on Avenida Paulista – 01/18/2023 – Frederico Vasconcelos

In November 2004, I spoke with industrialist Josué Christiano Gomes da Silva, who had been removed from the presidency of Fiesp (Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo) two days ago.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had appointed Vice President of the Republic José Alencar, Josué’s father, to the position of Minister of Defense. Alencar, who died in 2011, replaced minister José Viegas, who had left the government after clashes with the military.

At that time, I glimpsed the hypothesis that Coteminas (Companhia de Fabrics Norte de Minas), Alencar’s company, could be a supplier of fabrics for the manufacture of uniforms for the Armed Forces.

Was.

Josué, then CEO of Coteminas, came to the phone. He did not resort to advisors. He confirmed that months earlier the group had taken control of a company that had the Navy and Air Force among its clients.

“We are evaluating what will be the best course of action, whether we are going to stop the supply or not,” he said. “With the surprise we had [a nomeação do pai]since yesterday we are studying what decision to make”.

I followed for years, Sheet, the facts involving Fiesp. Two decades later, I identify, in Josué’s dismissal, distortions similar to those I recorded some time ago.

As journalist Fernanda Perrin informs, under analysis today at Sheetis attributed to former President Paulo Skaf, a Bolsonarist, opposition similar to that faced by President Horácio Piva (1998-2004), who tried to modernize the entity.

Piva had announced, on the day of his inauguration, a participatory management model, prepared by Trevisan, a private consulting firm. The new operational structure accommodated in leading advisory bodies linked to the three previous presidents (Carlos Eduardo Moreira Ferreira, Mario Amato and Luis Eulalio de Bueno Vidigal Filho).

“Skaf is not a traditional businessman. His critics, by the way, like to point out that he is an industrialist without industry,” wrote Perrin.

In the late 1980s, I wrote in Sheet an article under the title “A Myth Planted on Avenida Paulista“. It dealt with the loss of influence of Fiesp, then cited in the media as the “powerful entity of the industry”.

The article opened with bravado attributed to President Moreira Ferreira: “No one governs this country without the support of this house”.

Killed in May 2022, the lawyer, later a federal deputy for the PFL, was also “an industrialist without industry”.

ABC had ceased to be the center of tension in the country. With redemocratization, Congress, in Brasília, became the main stage for conflicts of interest. Fiesp lost the power to appoint and “fry” ministers.

Perrin says that Skaf “knew how to unite around him the interests of low-weight union leaders, symptoms of a weakened industry, who live from and for Fiesp”.

In 1995, the artificiality of trade union representation was exemplary in set 1,009 of the Fiesp building. There were sheltered the unions of cordage and tow, scales, weights and measures and those of arguable contribution to the GDP of São Paulo, such as those of hats, umbrellas and walking sticks.

These “paper unions” held voting power equal to that of the machinery industry union.

There was a “men’s” hat union and a “ladies'” hat union. The “clothing industry” union coexisted with the “men’s tailoring and clothing industry” union and the “men’s shirt” industry union.

Lawyer Miguel Reale Jr., who represents Josué, says that the dismissal was a reaction to the fact that the businessman organized a manifesto in favor of democracy, in which Febraban and trade unions participated. “It’s coup in big letters,” he says.

In the same Sheetjournalist Fernanda Brigatti says that, “despite being non-partisan, the document was understood as opposing the then president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), of whom Paulo Skaf, former president of the entity, was a supporter in the 2022 elections.

In other words, a demonstration by Fiesp in favor of the Bolsonaro “myth”; twenty years ago, the myth was the entity itself.

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