Fiesp has a decisive assembly this Monday; understand the crisis

Fiesp (Federation of Industries of São Paulo) will have its day of reckoning this Monday (16th) – or of washing dirty clothes, depending on who is looking. The extraordinary general meeting is scheduled for 2 pm, which could end in the dismissal of Josué Gomes da Silva, the current president.

Also this Monday, Josué receives vice-president Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) at Fiesp, who is also Minister of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services (MDIC). The invitation to lunch, as Panel SA anticipated, was seen as a sign of strength from the current president of the federation.

A friend of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), Josué Gomes was even invited to take over the MDIC. He declined the invitation, but his proximity to the new government is seen by people close to the imbroglio as a factor in his favor.

One of the criticisms of the opposition to the management of Josué Gomes is that he would be absent from the daily life of the federation, dedicating more time to the companies he manages than to the entity. To stay, they argue that he will need to demonstrate that he has time to lead the representation of São Paulo industry.

The plenary session of delegates representing unions linked to São Paulo industry was scheduled after a sequence of public and private pressures for calling the meeting. The first request made by a group of 78 unions was rejected by Josué. At the meeting in which he presented the decision, the president of Fiesp stated that this type of request needed to be accompanied by clear and detailed reasons.

A few days later, the group sent a new request to Fiesp, this time with 12 requests for explanations to the presidency of Fiesp. With no response from the president, the unions told the federation’s first secretary, occupied by industrialist Vandermir Francesconi Júnior, the need to hold the meeting.

With no response, the group published the convening of this meeting for December 21, but ended up withdrawing when, the day after, Josué Gomes himself called the meeting scheduled for this Monday.

Disagreements with the current presidency would have started about four months after the beginning of the mandate and accumulated until they “leaked” beyond the building on Avenida Paulista, in São Paulo.

Leaders who signed the request for assembly complain that Josué Gomes does not participate in the day-to-day of the entity, does not receive union representatives and no longer receives indications from these groups for positions in the federation.

Gomes replaced Paulo Skaf in charge of Fiesp, who spent 17 years at the head of the institution and supported him in the dispute. The former president of Fiesp is pointed out as an articulator of the crisis with the current one, but allies defend him and say that he was only approached when Josué’s relationship with the leaders had already soured.

In the opposition, leaders say that the dismissal of Josué Gomes is not the only possible result and that the outcome will depend on how the current president will deal with the dissatisfaction of the unions. If he leaves, he should be replaced by Rafael Cervone, his deputy, who now runs Ciesp (Center of Industries of the State of São Paulo).

What the unions want from Josué Gomes

The points of tension in the relationship between Josué Gomes and these unions can be seen in the detailing of reasons why they defended the holding of the assembly.

The discreet and even averse to interviews style bothers the leaders who sign the request, as well as the fact that he signed you, on behalf of Fiep, a manifesto for democracy. Despite being non-partisan, the document was understood to be in opposition to then-president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) – Skaf was his ally and supported him in the 2022 elections.

In one of the items, dissatisfied unions question the reasons why Fiesp published the manifesto. The text of the entities was released days before the act of August 11, at the Faculty of Law of USP, and was countersigned by only 13.7% of the unions affiliated to Fiesp.

“Please clarify if the affiliated unions were consulted regarding the content of the text published by Fiesp and if they had the opportunity to debate and deliberate on the subject”, they write, and also ask him to say if the text was discussed by the board “since such act indicated a clear political position of the entity and that, for the moment, would have gained contour of political and institutional position.”

At another point, the group asks you to justify an article published in Sheet in March, in which he wrote that he believed that commercial arbitration was facing a serious crisis of reliability. For the unions, the content of the opinion text signed by Josué discredits the Fiesp Arbitration Chamber.

The unions ask him to make a list of face-to-face visits to Brasília (DF) to discuss important issues for the industry with the federal Legislative and detail the number of interviews granted in favor of the defense of the sector.

They want Josué Gomes to explain the activities carried out by some people in bodies linked to Fiesp, as is the case of Sesi and Senai.

The composition of the departments and councils, pointed out by allies and opponents as a source of tension between the unions and Josué, also appears in the details of the request. For the opposition, Gomes must justify the participation or absence of unions in these spaces.

The assembly scheduled for this afternoon will be behind closed doors. Only the representatives appointed by the unions (most of them, the presidents) will be able to participate.

In the last week, leaders linked to the opposition unions to the current management monitored the possibility of some judicial maneuver trying to prevent the assembly from taking place or, preventively, barring a result.