On the same day that the Central Bank raised the tone of alerts about fiscal risks, in a harsh message to the management of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), the president of the institution, Roberto Campos Neto, met with members of the first echelon of the government to defend wage readjustments for BC employees.
Shortly after the end of the Copom (Monetary Policy Committee) meeting, which decided to maintain basic interest rates at 13.75% per year, Campos Neto met, separately, with ministers Esther Dweck (Management and Innovation) and Simone Tebet (Planning and Budget) to debate the topic. The meetings took place on Wednesday night (1st).
According to reports gathered by the Sheet, granting readjustments and holding new competitions for BC careers were the main subjects of the meeting with the Ministry of Management. In Planning, the topic was also addressed within a broader menu of topics.
The meetings were included in Campos Neto’s public agenda. Sought, BC declined to comment.
According to government sources, Campos Neto listed a series of BC deliveries, including Pix, an instant payment system launched in November 2020 and which was quickly adopted by the population, to value the category.
The president of the monetary authority also mentioned recent increases granted to careers in the Legislative and Judiciary, in addition to the existence of a bonus for employees of the Federal Revenue Service and fees for succumbing to Union lawyers – trinkets that boost the salaries of these categories.
The remuneration of the BC board was also the subject of discussion posed by Campos Neto.
According to reports, the president of the institution said he faced difficulties in recruiting new names to replace the outgoing directors, as the salary is considered low for a four-year term.
As shown to Sheet, Campos Neto started talks with financial market agents in search of a new name for the position of director of monetary policy. The mandate of the current holder, Bruno Serra Fernandes, ends on February 28. He could be reappointed for another four years, but is unlikely to remain.
The president and directors of BC today have a monthly salary of R$ 17,327.65. Before the institution’s formal autonomy, sanctioned in February 2021, Campos Neto had the status of minister and earned almost twice as much: R$ 30,934.70 per month.
Since January 1, 2023, Ministers of State receive BRL 39,293.32 per month, thanks to the increase in the federal salary ceiling and a legislative decree extending the measure to the top echelon of the Executive.
According to government sources, the president of the BC did not present a concrete adjustment proposal during talks with the ministers.
In May last year, the institution caused unease by sending to the Ministry of Economy, then led by former minister Paulo Guedes, a proposal for an MP (provisional measure) to grant a 22% wage adjustment to public servants from the following month. and including a career restructuring.
The proposal also provided for increases of 78.5% in Campos Neto’s salary, returning to R$ 30,934.70, and 69.6% in directors’ remuneration, to R$ 29,387.96.
An MP has immediate validity, that is, the readjustments would be applied even before the approval of the National Congress. The practice in the discussion of career readjustments is to forward the issue via a bill.
At the time, sending the draft irritated the Guedes team, as the previous government was evaluating a proposal for a linear readjustment of 5% for all civil servants – which ended up not even getting off the ground. But the BC’s proposal added fuel to the fire of discussions.
Given the bad repercussions, the monetary authority withdrew the draft from the system on the same day it was sent, alleging “inconsistencies”.
“The Central Bank detected inconsistencies in the text of the draft provisional measure for the restructuring of careers and the modernization of people management in this autarchy. For this reason, it removed it from the System for Generation and Processing of Official Documents of the Federal Government (Sidof)” , announced at the time.
THE Sheet questioned the BC to find out whether this proposal will be maintained or modified, but did not receive an answer on this point.
At the first Copom meeting under the Lula government, the institution raised the tone of its warnings about fiscal uncertainties. The BC reported seeing worsening in inflation expectations, which are moving away from the target in longer terms, and signaled maintenance of interest rates at the current level for a longer time – the market predicts the beginning of monetary easing in September.
One of the main sources of uncertainty is the design of the new fiscal rule that will guide the course of Brazilian public accounts, still in gestation in the Ministry of Finance. The format will be decisive in dictating the future trajectory of the public debt and its sustainability.
On the other hand, Campos Neto is also pressured by the BC server corporation.
On the afternoon of this Friday (3), he meets with members of trade unions –Sinal (National Union of Employees of the Central Bank of Brazil), ANBCB (National Association of Analysts of the Central Bank of Brazil), and SinTBacen (National Union of Technicians of the Central Bank of Brazil)–, who await a position from the head of the autarchy on the claims of the category.
According to reports, the president of the institution is not the first authority to seek the Ministry of Management in defense of readjustments.
The salary increase for civil servants is one of Lula’s campaign promises, which intends to open negotiation tables with the categories. So far, however, the Budget reserves only R$ 11.6 billion for adjustments to Executive servants.
In January, the PT sanctioned an increase of 18% in the salaries of ministers of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), which raises the remuneration ceiling of civil servants from the current R$ 39,293.32 to R$ 41,650.92 as of 1st of April 2023, BRL 44,008.52 on February 1, 2024 and BRL 46,366.19 on February 1, 2025.
At the BC, claims for salary recomposition and career restructuring interfered with the routine of the monetary authority in 2022. Dissatisfaction led the category to cross its arms from April to July, with a truce in the two-week strike.
The main demand of the category was a salary increase of 27%. At BC, analysts receive a gross monthly salary of around R$19,000 to R$27,000, while technicians’ remuneration ranges from approximately R$7,500 to R$12,500.
As for the non-salary agenda, the employees demanded a change in the nomenclature of positions – from analyst to auditor, for example – and a higher education requirement to join as a BC technician, among other prerogatives.
Also among the requests was the creation of a bonus for institutional productivity, whose regulation depends on the BC’s board, and the correction in the value of benefits, such as food allowance.
The strike came to an end with the federal government’s refusal to readjust the civil service last year.
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