Not to mention repeal of reform, Lula defends rights for app workers

PT pre-candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defended, this Tuesday (11), legislation that guarantees rights to app platform workers, such as drivers and delivery men.

Lula spoke at the opening and closing of a meeting in which representatives of the Spanish government presented the “counter-reform” being implemented in that country. In Spain, the government, businessmen and workers discuss the revision of the 2012 labor reform, which, five years later, would serve as an inspiration for Brazil.

At the meeting, Lula stated that, since the approval of the reform conducted by former president Michel Temer (MDB), the salary mass has fallen every year. Leaders from six trade union centrals participated in the meeting at the headquarters of the Perseu Abramo Foundation, where they watched a virtual presentation by the Minister of Inclusion, Migration and Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, about the Spanish experience.

According to the president of CUT (Central Única dos Trabalhadores), Sérgio Nobre, Lula did not even mention the possibility of repealing the 2017 labor reform. The former president pointed out the need to build a negotiating table for the tripartite debate. And he encouraged union leaders to defend their proposals in the city.

The president of Força Sindical, Miguel Torres, reports that Lula defended that the resumption of employment is accompanied by the offer of vacancies for qualified labor, with a view to recovering the salary mass.

Present at the meeting, the president of the inter-union, Edson Carneiro Índio, says that Lula said that the labor reform was implemented in Brazil promising a paradise for jobs, but he delivered the hell of unemployment. Also according to Índio, Lula said that, for some sectors of the economy, even the Lei Áurea would be revoked in Brazil.

According to Renê Vicente, vice president of the CTB, Lula encouraged union leaders to agree on a joint position, after following the debate not only in Spain.

In the presentation, the representatives of the Spanish government stated that, there, the businessmen agreed that the precariousness of work was affecting the qualification of the workforce and, with that, the competitiveness of the country. They also said that in Spain, services by application were considered unfair competition.

The meeting continues Lula’s meetings with the vice president of the Spanish government, Yolanda Díaz. Spanish government representatives participated virtually after office hours in Spain.

In addition to Escrivá, the director general of the Social Security Organization, Borja Suárez Corujo, spoke about the debate in Spain, as well as representatives of the PSOE, Congress and Spanish trade union centrals.

Escrivá gave a presentation on “economic policies for a more just and inclusive society”. According to Lula’s advisors, the minister pointed out that the precariousness of labor laws leads to a reduction in the qualification of the workforce, which delays the country’s development and the generation of higher quality jobs.

“It is a lie that a country’s competitiveness is achieved by reducing salaries. It is achieved with better salaries combined with the qualification of the workforce”, he said.

The Spanish government team admitted that the new reform, as it is called, is not consensual, having received criticism from both the extreme left and the right. There will be new meetings between Brazilians and Spaniards.

The new labor reform in Spain provides for:

• limit the terms of temporary contracts to six months, up to one year with collective bargaining authorization
• encourage hiring for an indefinite period
• ending the contracting “for work or service”, equivalent to intermittent work in Brazil
• curb outsourcing
• to revoke ultraactivity, extending the validity of collective agreements until the conclusion of new negotiations