Less than five years after being approved in Congress and implemented in Brazil, the labor reform of the Michel Temer government (2016-2018) was once again on the Brazilian political agenda, after demonstrations by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT ).
Lula, who is considered a pre-candidate for the Planalto in this year’s elections, posted on Twitter last week: “It is important for Brazilians to closely follow what is happening in Spain’s Labor Reform, where President [de governo, cargo equivalente ao de primeiro-ministro] Pedro Sánchez is working to recover workers’ rights.”
The tweet was accompanied by a link to a report on the Brasil de Fato website, criticizing the reform.
On Tuesday (12), Lula met virtually with unionists and with the PSOE (Socialist Workers’ Party of Spain), which returned to power in the country in 2018 and has been discussing ways to reverse the labor reform implemented in Spain in 2012.
At the meeting promoted by the Perseu Abramo Foundation, linked to the PT, Brazilian and Spanish leftists agreed to continue discussions to review labor laws in both countries.
The Spanish party posted on its Twitter after the meeting: “By dialogue and agreement, great advances are made”.
A 2012 revision of the Spanish labor reform became one of the main slogans of the Sánchez government in the fourth year of his term. Spain has been trying to react to the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
But what is happening in Spain? And how does this process relate to what Lula defends for Brazil, should he be elected?
Check out some questions about labor reform below.
What was the Spanish labor reform of 2012?
Spain was one of the European countries most affected by the financial crisis that hit the world in 2008. In 2012, unemployment was over 20% — that is, it reached four million Spaniards.
The then president of government Mariano Rajoy, of the right-wing Popular Party (PP), managed to approve in July 2012 in the Spanish Parliament his proposal to make the country’s labor laws more flexible.
The government’s discourse at the time was that the relaxation of labor laws was necessary for Spain to generate more jobs and regain the competitiveness of its economy, which had a great expansion in the 1990s. part of it, still a vestige of the Franco era (1939-1975) — demanded too much from companies, making hiring difficult and reducing the competitiveness of the private sector in the country.
The Spanish left has always fought this discourse and, in February 2012, organized protests and general strikes in dozens of cities. Even so, the reforms were approved by Congress, within an urgent scenario for the recovery of the Spanish economy.
A few months earlier, unions and employers had agreed to cap salary increases for the next three years, as part of a collective commitment against the crisis.
What were the points of the 2012 reform?
The reform allowed employers to relax employment contracts to avoid layoffs. Laws on just-cause dismissal were relaxed. Companies no longer needed to prove that a layoff was essential to ensure the future profitability of the business.
In addition, the reform prioritized collective agreements signed directly between employees and companies — rather than entire sectors with unions.
As a result, companies could negotiate directly with their workers to reduce working hours and lower wages, for example.
Compensation for unfair dismissal was reduced to 33 days’ salary per year of service up to a maximum of 24 months. Before the reform, dismissed without just cause were entitled to 45 days of salary per year up to a maximum of 42 months.
The Spanish economy resumed growth two years after the approval of the labor reforms, having expanded by more than 2% on average in all the years until the arrival of the pandemic crisis.
However, the debate over whether or not the labor reform contributed to this growth has always been marked by divisions.
In 2013, an OECD report highlighted that the reform “promoted internal flexibility, reduced dismissal costs for permanent workers, increased hiring on permanent contracts and led to a drop in collective dismissals”.
Why has the government of Spain reversed some of the reforms now?
Not all sides agree with this OECD assessment.
The government’s president, Pedro Sánchez, and his deputy prime minister, Yolanda Díaz, have always attacked the labor legislation passed in 2012, arguing that it did not create jobs and made the situation of Spanish workers more precarious.
One of the consequences of the reform, according to them, is that there has been a boom in temporary employment contracts, which have improperly replaced permanent jobs.
At the end of 2021, the Spanish government announced a consensus to review the 2012 reforms, after nine months of negotiations between the government, unions and employers.
The revision modified a type of contract known in Spain as “por obra y servicio”, where workers were hired for a specific project or service.
This is the model that has been used for fraudulent hires, with companies issuing and renewing temporary contracts rather than guaranteeing a permanent contract with better conditions.
Now, contracts of this type can only be renewed for up to six months, or one year if there is a specific collective agreement.
Anyone who accumulates 18 months of temporary contracts in just 24 months is considered permanent. Sánchez’s renovation opened a window of exception for special seasons, such as Christmas and harvest time.
These revisions to the Spanish labor reform were carried out by decree and are already in effect, but still need to be approved in the Spanish Parliament in the coming days to become permanent.
What was Brazil’s 2017 labor reform?
The 2017 labor reforms were one of the main achievements of the government of Michel Temer (MDB), who was elected vice president by Dilma Rousseff (PT) in 2014 and assumed power after the PT’s impeachment, having broken with her in the process. .
At the time, Brazil was experiencing a severe economic recession. Temer argued, as in Spain in 2012, that old labor laws needed to be relaxed and modernized.
As in Spain, Temer’s reform reinforced the direct negotiation between companies and workers of agreements that could prevail over the current law. One of the government’s objectives was to prevent many disputes from ending up in court, generating insecurity.
The reform also regulated the home office, defined that self-employed workers who work exclusively for an employer cannot be considered employees of the company, modified partial work contracts, determined the end of the mandatory union tax, forced workers to bear the costs of lost labor lawsuits, made the work of pregnant women more flexible in unhealthy places, expanded the possibilities for outsourcing and prevented the time spent commuting from home to work from being counted as hours worked.
As in Spain, unions and left-wing parties criticized Temer’s reform, saying that —instead of creating jobs—it ended up taking away workers’ rights.
What does Lula intend to do?
Lula has been advocating a review of Temer’s reform along the lines of what is being discussed in Spain. In November, he visited Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz during a trip to Europe.
On Tuesday (11), in the virtual meeting, Lula met with representatives of the Spanish government, who, according to the former president’s website, were working “outside the government’s working hours”.
In the note, Lula quotes a speech by the Minister of Inclusion of Spain, José Luis Escrivá: “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”.
The meeting ended with a promise “to continue to deepen exchanges and dialogue”, but there was no specific detail on what Lula would change in Brazilian labor law, if elected.
The episode had political repercussions, generating pressure on Geraldo Alckmin —considered as a potential candidate for vice-president on a ticket with Lula— to contain the impetus for revision by PT members.
In the PSDB, the governor of São Paulo and pre-candidate for the presidency, João Doria, spoke out in favor of the 2017 labor reform and promised to deepen the reforms, if elected.
In article in leaf, former president Michel Temer defended his labor reform, claiming that it was important to generate “fiscal and economic credibility in the country”.
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