LABOUR-BRAZIL: Nearly All New Jobs in Informal Sector

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 31 2000 (IPS) - The official verification that new jobs created in Brazil are almost all found in the informal sector has finally put an end to the contradictory discourses of the government and trade unions.

Of the 418,351 workers who joined the ranks of employed Brazilians last year, just 5.6 percent were hired in compliance with official regulations, reported Edward Amadeo, secretary of Political Economy for the Finance Ministry.

The data indicate that the “informalisation” of the workforce reached new heights: 94.4 percent, compared to the 80 percent experts recorded last year for Latin America in general.

Current labour laws collide with reality because a growing majority of the employed are “illegal,” deprived of their formal rights, observed Amadeo, a former Labour minister.

Brazilian workers are divided in two groups, “the Class A that have their rights assured, and Class Z, who do not have anything,” according to Amadeo, who defended legal reforms that favour company-employee negotiations to find alternatives to to workers’ complete marginalisation.

Three weeks ago, the current Labour minister, Francisco Dornelles, announced the government’s intention to amend the Constitution in order to remove the obligatory nature of guarantees to rights such as the year-end bonus, 30 days of vacation, and unemployment insurance.

The objective is to allow the creation of new labour conditions and relations through negotiations, making the labour market less rigid and opening the way for new, less costly jobs.

The changes would assure trade unions the right to keep the rights they currently have.

The government wants to take advantage of the shocking data on informal sector growth to promote the standardisation and expansion of unstable work, accused Julio Turra, member of the executive board of the ‘Central Unica dos Trabalhadores’ (CUT – Brazil’s largest union central).

The government is back-pedaling after the “flexibilisation” proposal because of the strong union reaction against it, but it will continue trying to impose the labour reforms, according to the unionist.

The fact that nearly all new jobs are nothing more than “under- employment” is an indication of the serious situation caused by the current economic model, which “favours speculative capital with high interest rates,” said Turra.

The government maintains it is “easier to fight unemployment by accepting informal work and deregulating labour relations, but in countries where they have chosen that road, like Argentina and Spain, they did not lower unemployment,” it only increased, argued Turra.

The CUT defends the labour rights won during many decades of struggle, and its right to extend them to informal workers by establishing norms and mechanisms to bring them under the protection of the Constitution and labour laws.

The union central is attempting to organise “this most vulnerable sector,” by creating associations, co-operatives and even unions, such as one for street vendors that is already up and running in Sao Paulo.

The unionists recognise, for the most part, that the informal sector and the instabililty and scarcity of work are all part of a current trend, and are seeking new ways to confront it.

The CUT, which claims a roster of 15 million workers, is creating “solidarity development agencies,” in a joint effort with non- governmental organisations and various institutions, to stimulate production, services and credit co-operatives as well as micro- businesses.

Many trade unions have intensified training programmes in an effort to prepare individuals for the new technologies appearing in the labour market.

‘Fuerza Sindical’ (Union Force), Brazil’s second-largest labour organisation, is attempting to organise the unemployed and has set up an extensive job location service. It is also backing several co-operatives.

The “third industrial revolution is eradicating formal employment and the traditional union actions are no longer relevant,” sentenced Enilson de Moura, president of the Social Democracy Union, which focuses on training workers for new professions or labour activities.

Data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics indicate that 76.5 percent of the new informal jobs were in the service sector.

Services now far outweigh industry, which is limited to 18.8 percent of the economy, representing another great challenge for Brazil’s trade unions.