The Chamber of Deputies approved this Tuesday (12) in the first round the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) that creates a national salary floor for nurses, technicians and nursing assistants and midwives.
The text was approved by 425 to 7 – it needed at least 308 votes to pass. Only Novo oriented a vote against the text.
According to an agreement reached by the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), to speed up the vote, the deputies did not discuss the proposal, which went straight to the vote. The pact provides that the second round will be voted on only after the appreciation of the PEC that expands social benefits in an election year.
“We will start voting on PEC number 11, with the agenda for breaking the interstice, with a request to withdraw the agenda of the Novo and merit of the first round, with an agreement of time procedures to be used until 18:45”, said Lira. “At the end of 18:45, we ended the voting of the first round on merit, we went back to PEC 15, after PEC 15 we finished the second round of the 11.”
If there are no changes in the second round, the PEC goes on for enactment
The text was approved in a symbolic vote in the special commission last Thursday (7). The initial idea was for the vote to take place on the same day, after the analysis of the PEC that expands social benefits. With the postponement of the vote, both were for this Tuesday.
The purpose of the PEC, which has already been approved in the Senate, is to give legal certainty to a bill that provides for the minimum salary for these professionals. The proposal has already been approved in Congress, but the Chamber of Deputies has not yet taken the presidential sanction, as there was fear of a veto by Jair Bolsonaro (PL) or even lawsuits.
This was because there was a risk of the proposal being framed as an initiative defect, when one Power advances over the prerogatives of another in the presentation of legislative or constitutional changes.
Therefore, the text of the PEC determines that a federal law will establish the national salary floors for nurses, technicians and nursing assistants and midwives. That is, it allows the previously approved bill to have legal conditions to be applied.
The project creates a floor of R$4,750 for nurses. Nursing technicians would receive 70% of this amount, and nursing assistants and midwives, 50%. According to the proposal, the value will be adjusted annually based on the INPC (National Consumer Price Index).
According to the PEC rapporteur in the special commission, deputy Carmen Zanotto (Citizenship-SC), nursing is the largest professional category in the field of health in Brazil. The parliamentarian mentioned that the category is composed of 1.8 million professionals, 85.1% belonging to the female sex.
“Covid-19 has definitively revealed the importance of SUS and of all health professionals, who have spared no effort on the front line of facing the pandemic, unfortunately causing, due to the precarious and unhealthy conditions, the death of 872 valuable professionals in the nursing area, with irreparable losses for hundreds of families”, he said, in the justification of the project.
Deputies, who analyzed the financial impact of this change, predict an increase in spending on personnel in the order of R$ 16.31 billion per year, considering public and private health institutions.
Despite the PEC, there is still no solution to finance the costs of the new national nursing floor.
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