Various authors: World of work and civilizing reforms: the winds of Spain

Spain finally decided to end its long neoliberal cycle of disrupting the labor market, where the Pedro Sánchez government, of the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español), approved in December 2021 (in the form of a Royal Decree to be ratified by Congress) a reform civilizing labor force, after intense social participation via tripartite negotiation throughout the past year, thus involving workers, the government and businessmen. Spain’s high unemployment, especially among young people, one of the biggest inequalities in Europe and the precariousness of working conditions led to this turnaround.

In the case of Brazil, the labor reform is the last jewel in the crown instituted by the Temer government in 2017 with the promise, made by the then Minister of Finance Henrique Meirelles, that it would bring 6 million new jobs. In addition to increasing the problem of employment, whose mass of unemployed is totaling 14 million Brazilians, 1.5 million more than in the year the reform was approved, the so-called “modernizing reform” increased informality in the labor market, reaching today to an incredible 45 million workers, almost half of the employed population, a gain of more than 3 million since 2017 and there was still a reduction of a little more than 1 million formal workers, all these data recorded by the Pnad Contínua, from IBGE.

After reviewing the data from the new Caged in 2020, showing that the vaunted creation of formal jobs during the Bolsonaro government was actually a brutal underestimation of layoffs provoked by the methodological change in the database, there is no doubt about the inability of the labor reform in fulfilling its main promise.

Not to mention the more profound effects of the said reform for the world of work, by preventing access to the Labor Courts, equalizing employer and employee when we all know that this relationship is asymmetrical, and destroying sources of union funding, preventing the strengthening of unions. bargaining structures on the part of workers. Temer’s reform was approved without negotiation with the workers, without adequate technical discussion and by a government that did not discuss its program at the polls, ascended to power by striking the president legitimately elected by popular vote and destroyed the main regulatory institutions of work, in the Executive. and in the Judiciary.

Democratic governments do not authoritatively repeal laws. Furthermore, the reality is that we need to think about a more dignified future for Brazilian workers, and this new world of work – alone responsible for almost 50% of the reduction in income inequality that we had in the last development cycle, according to a survey by Ipea – must incorporating and structuring the new conditions of occupation brought about by technological advances. The impacts of the informalization of work are serious and profound.

According to research by the Penssan Network, the risk of severe food insecurity, in other words, hunger, is four times greater in families headed by informal workers than by salaried workers, reaching 15.7% of this group in 2020, against 3.7% of formal workers. . The increase in informality has reduced the wage bill, removing the working class from access to the income generated by the economy. What we have been witnessing is a civilizational crisis in the Brazilian labor market, accelerated by the economic disaster of Bolsonarism, whose consequences may become irreversible.

On the example of the Spanish civilizing reform, this consists of three main axes: the strengthening of social spending on education and health and the creation of a minimum income program similarly inspired by the Brazilian Bolsa Família; the real increase in the minimum wage, currently set at 1,125.00 euros and whose goal is to reach 60% of the average salary by 2023 (currently, this level has reached 57% of the average); and to tackle unemployment and the precariousness of work, limiting the use of short-term contracts and encouraging contracts for an indefinite period, taxing contracts of less than 30 days at 27 euros, reducing layoffs as an adjustment variable in the labor market , investing heavily in a professional qualification program, especially for medium-sized occupations (technical level), and expanding access to job preservation programs specifically created to combat the pandemic.

The Spanish experience shows that tripartite negotiation can be a viable path, but for this to work in Brazil, a new development model is needed and the rescue of democratic institutions of tripartite negotiation and social participation, preyed upon by successive authoritarian movements. Evidently, the Brazilian reality is much more challenging, we have an unequal society, dualized between formal and informal labor markets and whose State is captured by undeniable desires for self-destruction.

It is possible, however, to point out new paths. With the resumption of public policies for economic growth, State action is fundamental, reactivating the engine of income generation and distribution in the world of work and improving the design of the Welfare State for profound technological, environmental and demographic changes. that lie ahead, guaranteeing a minimum income to a larger portion of the population that has now been left unattended with the disruption caused by the Bolsonaro government’s mistakes in combating the pandemic and in the introduction of Auxílio Brasil.

In the labor market, the State needs to act directly and actively in the management of the mass of unemployed, guaranteeing temporary social jobs in strategic sectors, such as personal care, improvements in public and cultural infrastructure, and redirecting the technical training of workers affected by the intense productive restructuring. accelerated by the pandemic.

It is necessary to dare a new policy to value the minimum wage and a new social contract centered on a single worker statute, whether formal or informal, that allows access to minimum labor rights for the entire economically active population. Recover lost rights, reduce the deep disparities of gender and race in the labor market, restore the conditions of access to Labor Justice and restore the primacy of the union organization over the individual organization in the labor market.

However, our civilizing reform needs to act as a powerful instrument for the inclusion of the informal world, recognizing the rights of workers by application and acting strongly in the regulation of own-accounts, which is the informal category that grows the most today, including access to funds. traditionally constituted by the formal sector of the economy such as the FAT (Fund for Support to the Worker) and expanding unemployment insurance to the informal world.

Spain is not an isolated case in the world, several countries have revised their labor standards after the harsh confrontation of the pandemic and its effects on employment, including the United States and South Korea, which has even reduced its working hours, agenda today considered utopian for Brazil. The biggest political dispute is over the pattern of the cycle of economic recovery that will come after the immunization produced by mass vaccination and the long-awaited change in the behavior of the virus to an endemic disease.

The effects of the pandemic are already comparable to a great world war, but the paths to a more or less civilized recovery remain wide open for nations. Brazil needs to decide if it chooses to remain in this strange place of denialism, authoritarianism and precarious work or if it prefers to invest in an economic-social and environmentally sustainable project.