Government leader wants Bolsonaro not to give police officers raises to contain federal workers’ strike

The government leader in the Chamber, Ricardo Barros (PP-PR), has suggested that, to contain the strike movement, no federal public servant will have a salary readjustment in 2022 – not even the categories of federal police who are waiting for a restructuring promised by President Jair. Bolsonaro (PL).

The broad mobilization in the civil service for salary readjustment was triggered after the lobby of federal police officers had an effect and corporations heard from Bolsonaro that there will be resources for salary increases in 2022, election year. These categories are part of the president’s electoral base.

In Barros’ opinion, the solution to containing the pressure is for Bolsonaro to back off from the promise he made to the police, and that the salaries of all federal servants not be readjusted this year. “Don’t give anything to anyone”, defended Barros to leaf.

After Bolsonaro’s direct involvement in the articulation in defense of the increase of police officers, an amount of R$ 1.7 billion is foreseen in the 2022 Budget for salary readjustments in the civil service, but there is no provision in the text for the use of resources exclusively for the police careers.

Only PF, PRF (Federal Highway Police) and Depen (National Penitentiary Department), in addition to community health agents, obtained a promise of readjustment from Bolsonaro.

But several civil servants unions are mobilizing to get at least part of this budget or to get more space in the Budget aimed at correcting salaries of civil servants.

According to the government’s calculations, each linear increase of 1% to all civil servants generates an impact of R$ 3 billion for the Union.

Representatives of the civil service elite say that most federal civil servants are 27.2% off their salary, as there has been no readjustment since 2017.

In November, Bolsonaro even promised a broad readjustment for federal servants, but did not specify the rate of correction of salaries.

Because of the budget squeeze, the measure was discarded by congressional leaders, including the president’s allies.

A widespread increase in federal civil servant salaries would require an expense cut in 2022 that should reduce the space for parliamentary amendments.

Amendments are mechanisms for deputies and senators to send budget resources for works and projects in their electoral bases and, in this way, gain even more political capital. This budget gets special attention in 2022 because of the election.

If the government gives in to pressure and starts to defend a broad salary increase, it will be necessary to cut spending in another area, such as the functioning of the public machine or amendments.

Party leaders aligned with Bolsonaro reject the possibility of discussion about readjusting servers if the solution is to reduce the budget for parliamentary amendments.

Congressmen’s calculation is as follows: the political benefit for them is greater when resources are directed directly to improving their electoral base. A broad readjustment to civil servants would have a lesser political effect on the dispute that each parliamentarian has to face at the polls.

The government has not yet made significant gestures to try to contain the pressure from the civil servants. A few occasional meetings were held between members of the Executive and representatives of the civil service elite, but there was no progress or the opening of a negotiating table.

With this, the strike movement advances. The forecast is that more categories will approve in assembly the adhesion to the proposal for a general strike on January 18, presented by Fonacate ​(Permanent National Forum for Typical State Careers).

Fonacate brings together 37 state career associations and unions, around 30 of which are from the federal public service categories, such as the CGU (General Controllership of the Union), diplomats, foreign trade analysts, the National Treasury, the Federal Revenue and auditors of the work.