Even with almost 30 years of experience in the area, the Attorney General of Labour, José de Lima Ramos Pereira, says he was surprised by the escalation of cases of electoral harassment, and by what he considers the “naturalization” of the illicit: the way fearless way employers have threatened employees or promised benefits in exchange for votes.
“I have been at the institution for almost 30 years. What made our concern even greater was the widespread way, as if it were something of everyday life for you to make threats to your employee. As if you were doing something right. It is as if people understood that it is something normal”, said this Friday (14) to Sheet.
“Usually, when someone commits moral harassment, for example, they do it hidden, they don’t leave evidence. Not now. It’s as if it were an element of the employment relationship for you to force someone to vote for a candidate because you employ him. It can’t be normal” , said.
“What amazes me is the normalization, the trivialization of the illicit. They are not even worried if they will see it, if they will not see it. Either they believe that there is no functioning institution, or they believe that this is a normal act.”
Two weeks before the second round of the elections, the number of complaints in this year’s campaign is already higher than that recorded in 2018 – and it continues to rise. Until this Friday (14), the MPT (Ministry of Labor) had received 364 complaints in almost the entire country. The day before, there were 242. Four years ago, the agency registered 212 complaints involving 98 employers.
“We have cases here of employers threatening employees. ‘If you don’t vote for a certain candidate, you lose your job.’ There are reports of statements made by companies threatening to reduce jobs if a certain candidate is elected. There is another case of an influencer saying that if her employee votes she will be fired “, she says.
“People promising to pay 15th salary, pay BRL 200 if [o funcionário] vote for a particular candidate. These forms all characterize what we call electoral harassment. Occurring within the employment relationship, whether by coercing, threatening, humiliating, embarrassing or favoring [a pessoa] so that the vote is not free, it is certainly a labor illicit that needs to be fought vehemently.”
For the Labor Attorney General, it is difficult to pinpoint what caused the cases to increase so much, whether in comparison with the first round or with previous elections. He affirms that it is still too early to talk about orchestrated action on the part of employers and assesses that the “radicalization” of the policy seems to have contaminated labor relations.
“The facts that are being narrated throughout Brazil, in all regions of the country, demonstrate that either the population is more aware and is denouncing it, or the media is playing its role of helping to inform that this cannot happen, or there really is a more organized way of acting”, he says.
“I believe that this trivialization was due to, perhaps, all the conflict that has existed in recent years. The polarization of politics, the radicalization. All this has made people feel nervous. We have seen separations in families , people break ties. One of these ties is the work relationship, which has to remain immune to the electoral process.”
The increase in cases led the MPT to create a crisis office and release a technical note to guide the actions of prosecutors across the country.
The explosion of reports also raised the alarm in the campaign of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and among trade unionists. The assessment in the PT’s surroundings is that electoral harassment is not restricted to large companies and has even affected workers without formal affiliation, such as day laborers and hairdressers.
Of the ten cases that ended in the Labor Court until this Friday, only one harmed President Jair Bolsonaro (PL). The case took place in a union in Bahia and was closed with the signing of an agreement on September 28.
What amazes me is the normalization, the trivialization of the illicit. They’re not even worried if they’re going to see it, if they’re not going to see it. Either they believe that there is no functioning institution, or they believe that this is a normal act.
According to the MPT, one of the directors of the entity, who is a councilor and was a candidate for state deputy, was caught in a video threatening anyone who would vote for Bolsonaro. In the recording, made by one of the workers, the director of the entity says that “if there is a bolsonarista here, he will see me”.
Another concern of the Public Ministry of Labor — shared by the PT campaign — is with the so-called “embarrassment” situations: when the employer makes it difficult or prevents the employee from leaving work to vote. The case does not fall under electoral harassment, but can also be punished in the labor sphere.
“Every company is obliged to release workers on election day so that they can exercise their right to vote, even without compensation for hours. If the worker has 8 hours of work, you have to release him at some point during this period”, explains.
“You cannot prevent or hinder the exercise of the vote because this will also be analyzed by the competent bodies. It is illegal. It can be labor and even electoral. So you better ensure that your worker votes because it is a right guaranteed in the Federal Constitution “, he adds.
On Thursday (13), the president of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), Minister Alexandre de Moraes, announced that he will hold a meeting with the Attorney General for Labor and the Deputy Attorney General for Elections. The meeting should take place next Tuesday (18).
The president of the TSE stated that commanders of the Military Police reported that, in some states, there are employers wanting to withhold documents from employees so that they cannot appear to vote.
It’s not even a perception, it’s a fact. There was an increase in news to the Public Ministry of Labor, in several ways, after the first round. The total number tends to far exceed that of 2018, which was also not small.
“We regret in the 21st century that we return to a criminal practice. Employer coercing, threatening, promising benefits for their employees to vote or not vote for a certain person”, said the minister when announcing the joint meeting.
One of the expectations is that there may be some mechanism to facilitate the sharing of information. Last week, the TSE decided to support the campaign that the MPT has been doing on social networks.
“The MPT and the TSE unite in this institutional campaign against #Electoral Harassment and reinforce the right to free and secret voting, guaranteed to all workers in Brazil”, say the two institutions in a publication last Tuesday (11).
“When you have a national problem, and it is a national problem, you need institutions to articulate, unite and make efforts so that the action is correct. Of course, this will give rise to the exchange of information. In the MPT, all complaints are being forwarded to the Public Electoral Ministry”, says Pereira.
“It’s a fact. It’s not even a perception, it’s a fact. There was an increase in news to the Public Labor Ministry, in different ways, after the first round. small”, he says.
We regret in the 21st century that we return to a criminal practice. Employer coercing, threatening, promising benefits for their employees to vote or not vote for a certain person.
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