Nursing floor: category prepares acts – 06/26/2023 – Market

Union representatives of nurses started a new offensive to pressure the federal government, states and municipalities to pay the new minimum salary for the category. Nursing leaders organize acts and stoppages in the coming days claiming the measure.

Last Friday (23), Sindenfrj (a union that represents nursing in Rio de Janeiro) took to the streets to collect payment for the floor. The secretary general of the entity, Marco Antônio Schiavo de Souza, says that the union is preparing a new unified strike this week, with workers from the municipal and federal network.

“The Ministry of Health has not made the payment for the category and, moreover, has not transferred the money to municipalities, states and philanthropic networks. They are holding back the implementation of the floor”, he says.

The Rio de Janeiro Municipal Health Secretariat says the strike is illegal and harms patients. It also states that it will take legal measures to ensure care for the population. “The Ministry of Health will pass on the amounts for the payment of the nursing salary floor. In the following month, the amount will be passed on by the municipality of Rio to the category in proportion to the amount sent by the federal government”, wrote the folder in a note .

For this Wednesday (28), the National Nursing Forum is preparing a national mobilization. In Brasilia, the concentration will be in front of the Ministry of Health.

“The fight is: pressure on the federal government to transfer the money as quickly as possible and on the STF so that the votes are modified and benefit the workers”, says Solange Caetano, who represents the FNE (National Federation of Nurses) in the forum .

Sanctioned by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in August last year and suspended by the STF the following month, the new national nursing floor generated confusion in the sector. The law did not indicate the cost of wages, which provoked a reaction from employers against the measure.

The National Congress enacted, in December, the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) of Nursing, which directed resources towards payment. The text defined that the category floor should be funded by the financial surplus of public funds.

Last month, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) sanctioned a law that released BRL 7.3 billion in special credit to help states, municipalities and the Federal District in implementing the measure. Soon after, Minister Luís Roberto Barroso, of the STF (Federal Supreme Court), reestablished the minimum salary for nursing.

In his decision, Barroso, who is the case’s rapporteur, pointed out that the amounts should be paid by states, municipalities and municipalities only within the limits of the resources transferred by the Union. He said that the R$7.3 billion reserved by the Federal Executive did not seem to be able to fully fund the necessary resources for the implementation of the salary floor. Even so, he considered that the measures adopted by the Union constituted a new fact and justified the revision of the suspension.

The trial of the measure by the Supreme Court resumed on Friday (23) and should go until the 30th, in a virtual plenary session, a platform where ministers cast their votes.

According to Antonio Britto, executive director of Anahp (which brings together private hospitals), the private sector awaits the outcome of the trial. “Public hospitals and Santas Casas have also not been able to pay so far. The law, as it came out of Congress, is extremely well intentioned, but poorly resolved. We hope that the Supreme Court, by next week, will reach an understanding and guide us in what we have to do. This subject has become one of the most confusing in the country in recent times”, he says.

In São Paulo, SinsaudeSP (the union that represents nursing technicians and assistants) will hold a demonstration in front of the city hall, next Friday (30), the scheduled date for the end of the trial.

“The stoppage has a time to start, but not to end, because it will depend on the STF. We will be waiting for their vote”, says Jefferson Caproni, president of the entity.

wanted by Sheetthe State Department of Health of São Paulo states that it is waiting for the transfer from the Ministry of Health.

According to the City Hall of São Paulo, nurses in the municipality already have a floor above the national level.

The Ministry of Health, in turn, says it is in dialogue with states, municipalities and the forum of nursing entities to comply, as quickly as possible, with the law that determines the payment of the nursing floor.

The folder also informs that, last Wednesday (21), it implemented a tool, developed by the FNS (National Health Fund), for state and municipal managers to update information on nursing professionals in their own and affiliated network. The idea, according to the ministry, is to update the database used to define the apportionment of the federal contribution for the payment of the floor.

Law 14,434, passed last year, defines that the base salary for nurses will be R$ 4,750. Nursing technicians should receive 70% of this amount (R$ 3,325); and nursing assistants and midwives, 50% (R$ 2,375).