PT studies negotiated rate to replace union tax

The campaign of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) is evaluating a proposal to recover union funding based on a fee to be charged to workers, but with a percentage to be established in collective bargaining.

The main trade unions in the country are aligned with the PT candidate, who leads the polls of voting intentions. Lula has already declared that he is against the return of the union tax, which was abolished in the 2017 labor reform.

The change, by former president Michel Temer (MDB), extinguished the mandatory contribution, one of the main sources of income for unions. The “tax” is no longer compulsory and collection depends on the worker’s authorization.

As a result, the collection of labor unions (unions, confederations and centrals) fell from R$2.2 billion in 2017 to R$21.5 million last year.

The proposal under analysis by Lula’s campaign was presented by unionists and is known as a negotiation fee, as it is the result of an agreement between unions and workers during negotiations for a collective agreement.

This fee, or business contribution, would be deducted from the worker’s paycheck, even if he is not unionized (since he also benefits from the collective agreement).

The amount, according to people who participate in conversations with the campaign, should not be established by law, but the trend is that the level to be practiced is close to 1% of a salary – and can be charged in installments.

Before the labor reform, the mandatory union contribution represented the deduction of a day’s work, which was automatically made in the worker’s paycheck.

Now, with the end of the union tax, the professional who wants to contribute needs to express the decision by means of a letter sent to the union, which will notify the company to deduct the tax from the payslip.

If Lula wins the elections, the format for financing unions being evaluated by the campaign should be discussed at a tripartite negotiation table between representatives of workers, businessmen and members of the government.

Since the pre-election campaign, the former president has defended stronger unions. This means more power for collective bargaining and also recovering the revenue for these entities.

The guidelines of Lula’s government plan provide that “the decisions on solidarity and democratic financing of the union structure will also be respected.”

Members of the group that prepares Lula’s government program say that the suggestion of a negotiation fee has gained strength among PT’s allies.

Currently, some unions already include this fee through collective bargaining. This contribution, in some cases, has been questioned in the courts.

“I believe that, faced with a government that is willing to make a virtuous regulation and with due care, a mechanism like this would be interesting, that is, having regulated the right of business contribution, linked to collective bargaining from the assumption that a convention is valid for everyone regardless of being a member”, said Clemente Ganz Lúcio, advisor to the Forum of trade union centrals.

Lúcio is a contributor to the Perseu Abramo Foundation, participates in discussions in the union area with Lula’s campaign and is a former technical director of Dieese (Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies).

Today, those who are members of a union pay a monthly fee and have benefits, such as legal advice and summer camp. Workers who are not members do not have the obligation to contribute to the union and, in the case of a salary negotiation of the category, they are also included.

The argument of the union centrals is that the negotiation fee is discussed in the assembly and the collection is discussed with the workers who will benefit from the collective agreement.

In addition, they claim that this model will encourage unions to be more productive, because if it is not successful in negotiations representing workers, it will continue to have few financial resources.

Candidate for reelection, Bolsonaro defends the spraying of unions

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), who seeks re-election, presents as a plan the maintenance of the labor reform and, during the government, elaborated projects to pulverize the union movement.

“The new labor legislation passed will be maintained with legal certainty, helping to combat corporate and union abuses that also cannot have the ability to act as monopolies”, says an excerpt from the Bolsonarista government program.

The president’s economic team has already defended the end of the limitation for the creation of unions, the so-called union unicity, a system currently in force and which prohibits the existence of more than one union organization per professional category in the area.

In order to increase competition, the proposal was to allow more than one entity to represent a category in a specific region of the country.

To change this rule, it would be necessary to send a PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution), which needs to pass two votes in the Chamber and two more in the Senate. The bill, however, was not even sent to Congress.

The president’s team has also prepared a reform so that unions start to work with a free market logic. The idea was that the State would no longer participate in the relationship between employees and employers.

The activities of the entities would be supervised by the members themselves.

Although the Constitution guarantees freedom of association and free association, there are a series of obstacles and a bureaucratic process with the Executive for an entity to actually get off the ground.

Today, it is possible for some unions to act informally. However, only with the registration given by the government can the union exercise all its functions, such as having the power to take legal action, as an entity, against a company or to defend a category.

Sought, the campaigns of Ciro Gomes (PDT) and Simone Tebet (MDB) did not respond about proposals in the union area.