Congress allows using pandemic period to calculate benefits for police and health professionals

The Senate approved this Thursday (10) a bill that removes police and health professionals from the restrictions determined during the pandemic and allows the acquisition of rights related to time of service.

The proposal was approved with a favorable vote of 68 senators, against two against — 41 votes were needed because it was a complementary bill. As had already been processed in the Chamber of Deputies, it goes straight to the sanction of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

The approved bill amends the 2020 legislation that sought to help states, but imposed a series of financial restrictions under the federal program to combat the new coronavirus pandemic.

The legislation passed a few months after the arrival of the virus in the country determined the cancellation of payment of debts by the Union and imposed a series of restrictions on the public service, such as a ban on salary readjustments, a career restructuring plan and the appointment of those approved in public competitions. public.

The bill approved in the Senate this Thursday (10), authored by federal deputy Guilherme Derrite (PP-SP), from the bullet bench, removes police and health professionals from some of these restrictions – valid from May 28, 2019. 2020 and December 31, 2021.

The proposal allows civil and military public servants in the areas of health and public security to rely on this period to acquire rights related to length of service.

In practice, the bill starts to count this period for the purposes of payment of new blocks of annual, triennium, quinquennium, award licenses, among others resulting from the acquisition of a certain period of service.

The author of the proposal argued that it would not be appropriate if “there was not a calculation of the period of acquisition of these rights, especially for Health and Public Security professionals, either because these servers remained and continue to perform their duties, or because the ban on counting affects their career plans, even influencing the time to apply for retirement”.

The bill that imposed the restrictions, however, states that there is no impairment to seniority for retirement purposes.

In the same vein, the rapporteur of the proposal in the Senate, Alexandre Silveira (PSD-MG), stated during the reading that the bill corrects a “serious injustice with front-line servers”. Once again, Silveira also criticized Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy) calling him “insensitive” for imposing these restrictions on these servers.

In his report, the senator also stated that he intended to extend the effects of the project to all servers.

“Actually, the PLP under analysis is timid in applying the determinations only to public health and safety servers. Initially, we intended to present an amendment to extend the measure to all public servants, however, an amendment of this nature would make the project return to the Chamber of Deputies, delaying its conversion into law,” he said.

The senator also pointed out in his report that the Finance and Taxation Commission of the Chamber of Deputies pointed out that the project does not have any financial or budgetary implications, whether for the Union, states or municipalities. This is because it only guarantees the computation of service time for the acquisition of rights that servers would already enjoy if there was no pandemic.

When the proposal that imposed the restrictions was approved, the National Congress had included the exceptions related to length of service for public security servants, socio-educational agents, urban cleaning professionals, funeral and social assistance services, and health and education professionals.

However, these points were vetoed by President Jair Bolsonaro.

The approval of the project in the Senate takes place on the same day that the governor of São Paulo, João Doria (PSDB), announced a 20% increase in the salary of Health and Public Security professionals.

The other categories of state servers will have a 10% increase in salaries. The adjustment will take effect from March 1st and will be extended to retirees.