Luiz Marinho wants to boost union funds with worker money

Few names refer as much to the unionist origin of the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) as to the current Minister of Labor and Employment, Luiz Marinho. Graduated in Law, Marinho met Lula when he worked as a metallurgist at Volkswagen, in São Bernardo do Campo, in the 1970s, the beginning of the heyday of union movements.

Lula was president of the category’s union. Later, Marinho assumed the presidency of the same entity and, in 2003, of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT). Since then, he has consolidated himself as a PT staff member in elected and executive positions.

For the second time at the head of the Ministry of Labor, which he previously commanded from 2005 to 2007, Luiz Marinho has been reiterating what seems to have become his life mission: to revoke points of the labor reform, approved in 2017 in the Michel Temer government. In particular, the one that put an end to union dues.

To this end, shortly after Lula’s victory, the minister began his attacks on the reform and launched the proposal for revision. He classified the new rules as “a tragedy”, and the outsourcing law, approved in the sequence, as responsible for “the precariousness of employment and the growth of work analogous to slavery”.

Speech is strategy to recreate union tax

In an interview with the legal portal “Jota”, Marinho said that a tripartite group has already analyzed the necessary changes for the quick elaboration of a project to be sent to the Legislature. “The reform that [o ex-presidente Michel] Temer did is devastating from a rights point of view. It is devastating what these two governments [Temer e Bolsonaro] represent,” said the minister.

For analysts interviewed by People’s Gazette, however, the worker does not seem to be the minister’s crucial point of concern. In the same interview, Marinho makes clear the need to rescue the financing of the unions, which never hid their dissatisfaction with the end of the union tax – compulsory contribution of all workers to the respective unions, in the amount of one day of work per year.

The end of the tax, determined by the labor reform, dehydrated the union coffers. The collection fell, in 2021, to BRL 65.5 million, against BRL 3.05 billion collected only from January to November 2017, before the reform. President Lula himself even mentioned the “financial suffocation” of the unions.

Marinho admitted: “It is necessary to rebuild the finances of the unions. We see that, in addition to the monthly fee that is in the union statute, it is necessary to create a compulsory contribution during collective negotiations for the category as a whole”. Contributions would also apply to non-union members.

Analysts see the possibility that Congress will approve the changes intended by Minister Marinho as remote. But what is worrying is the ongoing strategy for reversing the advances made during the period when the PT was out of government.

For José Pastore, a professor at FEA-USP and a member of the Academia Paulista de Letras, it is a gradual process that includes several initiatives and actors. Labor reform is one of the central pillars. “For its maintenance in power, the PT needs strong trade unionism, especially in public administration, an indispensable instrument of party politics”, he summarizes.

Report by People’s Gazette showed how Lula, like what happened in previous PT administrations, gradually equips the public machine by calling old friends, PT allies and trade unionists for key positions in the Executive and state companies.

Unions have a monopoly on the captive market – and they want more

For Pastore, the trade unions, the PT’s support base, used to the facilities of compulsoriness, are pushing for the recreation of some collection instrument. “Imagine what a consumer dream it would be to open a store and, without providing any service, see the income fall into the account”, she illustrates.

For Hélio Zylberstajn, a senior professor at FEA-USP and coordinator of Fipe’s Salariometer, the strategy of discrediting the labor reform is a smokescreen to rescue funding in a scenario of “trade union monopoly with a captive market”.

He refers to “union unity”, established by the Constitution, which only allows one union per category of work. The compulsory nature of the tax, argues Zylberstajn, would be justified in a scenario of multiplicity and union democracy, where the worker chooses the union that represents him. “But Minister Marinho doesn’t say anything about it,” he says.

Reform did not take away rights and enabled job creation

Even more worrying, according to Zylberstajn, is the possibility of increasing the contribution. With the union tax, there was a fixed amount to be charged, which corresponded to a maximum of 3% of a month’s salary, only once a year.

Under Marinho’s proposal, workers’ assemblies will be able to set an even higher contribution. “There are cases of fixation in 1% each month”, reveals Zylberstajn. That is, the government wants to boost the unions’ cash with the worker’s money.

For Pastore, Minister Marinho’s recurrent arguments against the reform, in addition to being contrary to the expectations of the business community, do not reflect reality.

The reform of the Temer government, in 2017, was the main alteration of the CLT since its enactment, still in the Vargas era. Inspired by Italian fascist corporatism, the Consolidation of Labor Laws addressed the need to regulate the relationship between capital and labor at a time of rapid industrialization and urbanization.

Since then, a lot has changed and the need for flexibility has become a recurring demand in society. With it, some fundamental points were oxygenated and reduced the rigidity of the law.

Pastore says it’s a “myth” to say that labor reform has devastated rights. Workers have constitutional rights that cannot be negotiated in any way, including vacation, allowance, minimum wage, maternity leave. “The reform created an ingenious system that combines flexibility with guarantees,” she says.

With the reform, workers can, if they want, reduce their lunch time to leave earlier. The negotiated rule now prevails over the CLT, giving more freedom to companies and employees. “But the rights remain intact,” says Pastore. This freedom of negotiation made it possible, for the professor, to preserve 11 million jobs in the pandemic, in addition to the legalization of the home office.

Criticisms of the alleged precariousness of jobs do not hold up

There is another aspect little discussed, according to Pastore. Thanks to the reform, from 2017 to 2022, 2 million new formal jobs were created. It’s a surprising number considering a recession and a pandemic in between. He considers the narrative that the reform would not have delivered the promised jobs to be fallacious: “Yes, it did.”

A second myth in Marinho’s speech, according to Pastore, is the supposed precariousness of work due to outsourcing. What happened, he says, was the opposite: the measure made it possible to regularize a reality in the job market.

The reform introduced strict criteria for a company to hire services from another, including the condition for paying its employees’ labor and social security expenses. There are other specific protections.

“Slave labor” and media spectacularization

In addition to adequate training against accidents and illnesses, outsourced workers now receive, in these cases, assistance at the outpatient clinic of the contractor. They will also be able to enjoy the cafeteria, sanitary facilities and means of transport used by the contracting party. “None of these protections existed in the CLT”, emphasizes the professor.

Pastore criticizes the association of inhumane work problems with the reform or the outsourcing law. The “spectacularization” of cases of degrading working conditions by the media contributes to the government’s objectives of labeling the reform as harmful to the worker. “You have to separate things,” he says.

Illicit practices carried out by unscrupulous companies and work analogous to slavery have always existed and need strict supervision and punishment. “The law of outsourcing has nothing to do with this”, he points out.

Zylberstajn points out “distortion and exaggeration” in the reviews: “[Associar a reforma com] analogy to slavery is simply absurd”. He recalls that the International Labor Organization (ILO) itself concluded that the reform did not harm workers. “The union centrals denounced the country to the ILO twice, once after the enactment of the reform and another after the pandemic. In both, the Brazilian government was acquitted”.