Now is the time for Lula and the unionists
The agenda of the Right
Upholding the veto on amendment 3
2010 succession
New cabinet
Controversial appointments
Economic conservatism
Good winds
Abortion and public health
Third Workers’ Party Congress

Now is the time for Lula and the unionistsPresident Lula gave in May his first press conference of the second term. There were those who expected to see a president cornered by the interviewers, forced to talk about themes regarded by the media as thorny, such as reelection, the party coalition that supports the government, labor reform and abortion. Yet what we saw was a confident president willing to answer each and every question asked.

From the point of view of the media, the show was nothing but a lukewarm exchange of information, partly due to the agenda proposed by the news and media companies themselves and partly due to the incapacity of the professionals to go beyond the everyday headlines.

If, on the one hand, the biggest newspapers liked what they heard –the president dismissed the possibility of running for a third term in 2010; and argued in favor of a single candidate from the ruling coalition for the presidential succession, thus opening up a gamut of possibilities given that eleven parties compose his power base– on the other, Lula started a controversy with the sectors that support him, old-time party and labor movement companheiros, when answering labor-related questions.

As was to be expected, on the day after the interview the headlines highlighted Lula’s criticism of the civil servants’ strike. “Lula compares [civil] servants’ strike to vacations” printed newspaper Correio Braziliense; “Lula accuses servants of using strike as vacation”, on the cover of newspaper Folha de S. Paulo; newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo highlighted that, according to Lula, “public employees cannot go on strike as if they were private sector workers”.

Asked by a journalist about a complementary law draft being prepared by the Union’s Advocacy-General Office (AGU), which “toughens the rules for unionists”, Lula said that he had always expressed to his fellow public employees that striking in the public sector should not be done as a strike is done in a factory. The “civil servant does not have a boss, and those harmed are, ultimately, the Brazilian people, not the government”. He then went on to state that what “no Brazilian can accept is someone going on a 90-day strike and receiving for the stoppage days, because then it is no longer a strike but vacations”.

In response to Lula’s criticism, the president of the Single Central of Workers (CUT), Artur Henrique, said that “first we must guarantee the public employees’ right to collective bargaining. After that comes the question of how to regulate the conflicts”. The union leader added, “no one likes to go on strike. But without guaranteed collective bargaining this is the only way that the authorities will respond to the demands”.
The CUT opposes the complementary law on public sector strikes. To the federation, the content is “authoritarian and indecent”, and addresses the issue with the terminology used during the military dictatorship. The Advocacy Office’s bill, submitted to the Civil House, establishes, among other points, that no strike by the civil service can be called without the presence of at least two thirds of the rank-and-file in the assembly; that in every area of the civil service 40 percent of the services must be observed without altering the routines; and every strike must be communicated to the authorities 48 hours before it starts.

Former CUT president, João Felício, reacted harshly against the law. In an article published on the federation’s Internet portal, the unionist argues that “some of the evil terms used are true pearls thrown to the pigs of the big media, whose bosses insist on dictating the agenda and imposing the neoliberal program defeated in the last elections as a government policy, deconstructing civil service and ridiculing public employees to better render feasible the privatization of the Brazilian State”.

To Felício, “by defending the law regulating [civil service] strikes, the President of the Republic clashes with his support base, the labor and social movement that took to the streets to defend democracy and defeat the right-wing coup. Meanwhile he is applauded by the same right-wing forces that tried to overthrow him, which should serve as food for thought and, more than that, arouse intense concern. Definitely, the Brazilian labor movement does need legislation that regulates its life”.

The polemic between the president and the unionists had another episode in the same week he gave the press conference. During the meeting of the Council for Economic and Social Development (CDES), an advisory body to the president of the Republic, Lula asked the unionists to discuss the labor and pension reforms without “fear” and “dogmas”. In response, once again the CUT president hardened his rhetoric and declared, “we [unionists] fear no debate. We have no dogmas. Yet if the question is combating dogmas, I ask then the council members to reject them and come discuss the extremely elevated primary surplus, the reduction of the high interest rates, the increase of public budgeting for public and social policies, and the inclusion of workers. We are willing to discuss themes such as what to do to put an end, once and for all, to the deaths of workers in sugar cane cutting in Brazil, for example. What we cannot accept is always being invited to discuss the right-wing forces’ agenda, the agenda that was defeated in the last elections”.

The agenda of the Right

The agenda that the CUT president was referring to was the focus of the debate in the last Workers’ Party (PT) National Board meeting. According to the resolution approved by the petista leaders, “neoliberal conservatism is trying to regain space”. (Read the full text).

“Defeated in the 2006 elections, the neoliberal opposition is trying to re-introduce the right-wing agenda of a labor and pension reform that would imply in loss of rights. The measures and attitudes of the government in this area must always go in the opposite direction: broadening labor and pension rights for the Brazilian population”, states the PT document.

To the PT leaders, “proposals that aim to increase retirement age, transform the current system into a private, individual capitalization regime mirrored in the Chilean example, are furthermore politically unbearable. Now the defense of measures such as restricting the right to strike causes confusion in the people’s camp. The PT has always defended and will continue defending the right to strike”.

Still according to the document, the “PT deems it necessary to pay heed to the criticisms made by the CUT and other sectors of the social movement against the complementary law. The National Board orients the PT representation [in Congress] to seek to build consensus between the government and the social movements, bringing this debate for deliberation within the Party’s national board”.

The CUT, together with other organizations, is raising two key struggle banners: No to amendment 3 – vetoed by the government; and No to the passage of the complementary civil service strike law –submitted by the government.

This last bill is an essential part of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), launched by President Lula, which establishes tax cuts and investments of R$ 503.9 billion (approx. US$ 250 billion) until 2010 — including resources from the federal government, state-owned companies like Petrobras, the Brazilian National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES) and the private sector–, with the priority being infra-structure. The program encompasses an array of measures designed to reduce taxes, stimulate the private sector, increase public investing and enhance fiscal policy.

According to the CUT, the complementary civil service strike law caps expenditures with the Union’s staff over the next ten years to a ceiling of inflation plus 1.5 percent a year. In practice, this is tantamount to a wage squeeze policy for public employees, for the budget will only suffice to cover the vegetative growth of the payroll –occasional promotions, yearly promotions, retirements–, freezing the public entrance examinations policy, rendering unfeasible new hires and the necessary valuing of the services, admittedly very low quality.

Yet, as well said by journalist Altamiro Borges, in his article “The anti-strike bill of the Lula administration –II”, the Lula government “takes with one hand what it gives with the other”, as the popular saying goes. “Yesterday, the presidential veto to Amendment 3 designed to make jobs more precarious, a measure welcomed by the labor movement; today, a tremendous setback for the workers’ right to strike. Therefore, if labor and the social movements disagree with the government with regard to the complementary law, they are together in defense of the president’s veto to Amendment 3”.

Upholding the veto on amendment 3

Amendment 3, vetoed by President Lula, prohibits Federal Revenue auditors from imposing fines or closing down services delivering companies with solely one person, when in their understanding the services provided to the other company constitute, in fact, a labor relation. The amendment transferred to the Judiciary the decision of establishing the potential labor relation, benefiting professionals working as legal persons and the companies that use their services, instead of a labor-code regulated job contract.

In practice, such amendment would impede the Ministry of Labor and Employment from inspecting those cases of slave labor. Should a team of public employees come across workers with no work contracts on a farm, the employer could simply claim that the persons there had no ties with him/her. What’s more, only Labor Justice, in case any worker filed a petition thereto, would be able to define who is right: the employer or the inspection team. The auditors would be unable to impose fines, which today constitute one of the most important instruments in combating slavery.

At the National Board meeting, the PT resolved to engage, together with the social movements, in the concerted effort to uphold the presidential veto against Amendment 3, as an important moment for bringing together the institutional struggle with the social struggle in defense of the rights of the working class. “The PT has decided to organize a campaign in defense of labor rights, in support of President Lula’s veto of amendment 3, questioning its deregulating content for the rights of the working class under the pretense of regulation of the legal person”, says the document.

2010 succession

One of the first questions Lula had to face during his press conference was about the presidential succession in 2010 and whether he would run or not for a third consecutive presidential term.

Lula’s answer was that which he has been repeating for a long time: “I was against the reelection as long as the law lasted, and I was obliged to be a candidate for reelection because the political situation required that I should be the candidate”. He also said that he will not be a candidate in 2010, and defended a five-year term with no reelection.

The president also declared that the candidate to his succession should come from the government’s power base, whose name would be submitted to discussion of all the parties that compose it. Not necessarily a PT candidate.

According to journalist Maria Cristina Fernandes of Valor Econômico newspaper, this statement has more to do with his administration than with the succession. “Lula won’t be able to keep his coalition’s 11 parties united if, starting now, it becomes clear his preference for any of them [candidates]”. Fernandes reckons that “it is highly unlikely that the party of the President of the Republic will not have a candidate to the succession, which does not mean she/he will come to be Lula’s favorite”.

Lula’s reelection in October 2006 inaugurated a new conjuncture in the country. For one, the progressive and leftist forces withheld the government of the country, having as an obligation to implement their program, a pre-condition to pave the way for this political coalition’s victory in the 2010 elections. For another, the neoliberal forces that suffered their second defeat in presidential elections are seeking now to accumulate enough strength to try to recover the presidency of the Republic in the next election.

As underscored by the resolution approved by the PT’s National Board, “it is up to the government, the coalition forces and the PT to take advantage in the best manner of the existing conditions to implement the program that came out victorious in the 2006 elections, especially in the second-round runoff elections. The launching of the PAC, the program for the education area, the creation of a public television network, the political reform and the deepening of the continent’s integration constitute an important part of this program”.

However, the text continues, “it is necessary to understand that the government’s administrative successes, in their own, do not generate the conditions for the institutional continuity of the democratic-people driven project. It is necessary to strengthen the PT, reconstitute the popular democratic camp (composed by leftist parties and social movements) and define an adequate tactic for the next elections. The inexistence of a natural candidacy for the 2010 presidential elections stimulates competition between the different political parties and personalities that compose the government’s coalition”.

The election of the petista Arlindo Chinaglia to the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies showed the existence of a dispute inside the forces that support the Lula administration. This dispute combines programmatic divergences and the fight for space, with the upcoming presidential elections as the backdrop.

In the Chamber’s election, Chinaglia defeated Aldo Rebelo, from the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), also allied to the government. The communist had the support of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), historically allied to the PT.

The fraying of the PT–PSB–PcdoB relations may turn out to be very negative, bringing as collateral damage the strengthening of the opposition as well as of those more conservative sectors inside the coalition.

Aware of this fact and its consequences to the coalition, the PT sustains the recomposition of the democratic-popular camp, establishing an ongoing dialog especially with the PSB and the PCdoB. “It is worth recalling that the governmental coalition is not the popular-democratic bloc (PCdoB, PSB, PDT, PV, PMN), which traditionally guides our electoral alliances in states and cities”.

To the National Board, the composition of Lula’s second-term cabinet corresponded just to the correlation of forces existent in the National Congress, but did not duly consider the remaining variables, such as social governability.

New cabinet

The time spent on the ministerial reform was and still is excessive. The delay plus the method adopted resulted, even if that was not the intention, in an environment that facilitated the wear-and-tear operation against the PT, and operation nurtured by the opposition and the media.

As for the method, the most adequate course of action would have been to hold a formal discussion between the PT and President Lula on the general lines for the second term and the cabinet’s profile; next, the same discussion with the leftist parties; lastly, a discussion with all the coalition’s parties. And, obviously, that the rationale for the order of the conversations did not merely reflect a time sequence but expressed, on the part of the president, a positively differentiated valuing of the opinion of his party and of the leftist allies regarding the process.

The method adopted, unintentionally as we believe it was, treated everyone in a formally equal way; in practice, it gave the PT an inferior interlocution to that of other parties and sectors.

With regard to the alteration in the quantitative or qualitative presence of PT members in the government, if the parameter for comparison is, for instance, the cabinet organized in early 2003, the PT lost two strategic positions: Health, for the PMDB, and Cities, for the PP –a right-wing party.

At any rate, we must distinguish “the presence of PT members in the government” from “the presence of the PT in the government”. The majority of the Workers’ Party ministers that continue in the government, regardless of the evaluation we might make of them, continue by appointment of the president, not necessarily by appointment of the party.

On the other hand, there is a qualitative and quantitative growth of the presence of the PMDB in the government and in the government leaderships in the Legislature, with worrying implications for the government’s dynamics and for the 2010 elections. The PMDB is at the helm of the ministries of Agriculture, Communications, National Integration, Mines and Energy, and Health.

Controversial appointments

The composition of the new Lula cabinet was also object of questioning during the press conference. Magazine Carta Capital, one of the fifteen vehicles of communication drawn for the interview, wanted to know about the presences of longtime foes in the first echelon of the government: the journalist mentioned the appointments of Geddel Vieira Lima to the Ministry of Regional Integration and of Mangabeira Unger to the Department for Long-Term Actions.

Minister Geddel, of the PMDB, who was charged with administrative improbity, is a cattle raiser and the political heir of one of Bahia State’s most traditional families, has no commitment with the people’s causes, is a Fernando Henrique Cardoso supporter, and until very recently was an adversary of the Lula administration. Unger, of the PR, went as far as to write an article in which he accused Lula of heading the most corrupt government in the history of Brazil, besides calling for the president’s impeachment. To that Lula replied, “Many people will still have to swallow what they said about my government”.

Besides Geddel, other names appointed by the PMDB are, at best, polemic, for a popular-democratic government. With the appointment of Reinold Stephanes to the Ministry of Agriculture, Cattle Raising and Food Supply (MAPA), the second term team has another right-winger, a former Collor and FHC minister.

All these appointments originated in a mistake, namely, that of treating the MAPA as a ministry that should be run, preferentially, by someone associated with the agri-business. The criticisms that the Stephanes’ appointment earned from the farmers’ lobby do not alter that fact: the president keeps on opting, as he did in his first term with Roberto Rodrigues and Furlan, for a rationale of “social coalition” with sectors of big business.

That is what explains in part the invitation made to Miguel Jorge to the Ministry of Development. A Santander bank vice-president and member of the Board of Directors of O Estado de S. Paulo Inc., former Volkswagen (and Autolatina) vice-president, former chief editor of newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, Miguel Jorge has an “executive’s” track record stained by serious attacks against the unions’ right to organize and against the labor rights of journalists, bank workers and metalworkers. Yet, he will voice, in the government, the interests of a sector of big business.

In the Ministry of Communications, the re-appointment of Hélio Costa also causes deep frustration, particularly, for this is one of the strategic areas for the country. In this area, the PT had always advocated the appointment of someone committed to the democratization of communications and free of ties with broadcasting companies or telephone carriers. Therefore, this is not Costa’s case, knowingly committed to the interests of Organizações Globo TV network. For similar reasons, we cannot help but state that it was with great dismay that we saw the appointment of Ronaldo Sardenberg, a former FHC minister, to telephone regulatory agency Anatel.

In addition to these problems, associated to a certain conception of what should be the “coalition government”, it became evident that the government must not lower its guard in relation to ethical issues.

It is quite worrisome, for instance, the existence of serious accusations against people appointed to the cabinet, the rapid growth of the PR­– the Republican Party (former PL–Liberal Party), the presence of the PTB (which is still presided by Roberto Jefferson and counting with Collor among its ranks) in the ministry charged with the institutional negotiations’ agenda and in the government’s leadership in the Chamber of Deputies.

Observed as a whole, the ministerial reform is still prisoner to a concept of institutional governability.

The priority is to establish a correspondence with the correlation of forces existent in Congress, much more withdrawn than the one produced in the second round of 2006. An example of that is the presence of Roseana Sarney, the daughter of former president of the Republic, José Sarney, as the majority leader in Congress, providing an extended life to a 40-year-plus oligarchy that was defeated by the people.

Economic conservatism

Regarding the economic area, more specifically the case of the Central Bank, the maintenance of incumbent chairman Henrique Meirelles and of a board aligned with his positions is contradictory with the purpose of economic growth enunciated by the PAC and with the necessary political and institutional subordination the Central Bank must keep in relation to the Ministry of Finance.

The fall of the dollar below the two-real level rekindled the contest between economic trends. Once again, on one side are the developmentalists, who attribute the dollar price to the high interest rate –the Selic–, the highest in the world, which stimulates the inflow of the North-American currency for the purpose of speculative operations that further boost the appreciation of the real. On the other are those economists who claim that the devaluation of the dollar is a worldwide phenomenon, that little can be done, despite the trail of destruction the process leaves behind in the more traditional industrial sectors.

At the press conference, those who expected President Lula to change his rhetoric got disappointed. According to the president, the exchange rate will continue to float, in line with the Central Bank’s purpose of controlling inflation.

The slow reduction of the interest rate –19.75% in September 2005, 12.5% this year– boosted the influx of foreign investments in the country, with the consequent inflow of large volumes of dollars injected in the economy.

To University of Campinas economist Ricardo Carneiro, in an interview to magazine Carta Capital, two movements are perceptible with the fall of the dollar. The first is a reduction in exports of manufactured goods; the second, the replacement of domestic suppliers with foreigners. “This is job loss tomorrow”, he emphasizes. “The country is already on the path to deindustrialization. And, in the technologically advanced sectors, there is a process of transforming the industries in mere assemblers or maquilladora companies”, he contends.

David Kupfer, from the Institute of Economics of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), shares the same view. According to him, also in an interview to Carta Capital, faced with a long-term scenario of an appreciated exchange rate, the country will be a manufacturer and exporter of commodity byproducts with a low level of specialization. “Deindustrialization”, he sentences.

To the economists, the Monetary Policy Committee (Copom) could decide on a substantial cut in the base rate, which would prompt speculators to halt their betting operations based on the assumption that the real will continue to appreciate. According to economists, the pace could be stepped up from 0.25 percentage points to 0.75 in the next meeting.

Good winds

Yet Lula’s ministry reserved some good surprises. Just to stick to two names, first we have the Minister of Health, José Gomes Temporão (PMBD); and, second, the Presidency’s ministry-level Social Communications Department head, Franklin Martins.

In Franklin’s case, he brought back onto the agenda the creation of the Public TV Network, advocated by the Ministry of Culture, Radiobrás, the Chief of Staff and other governmental bodies and spheres, and undoing the conceptual confusion created by Minister of Communications Hélio Costa. After all, as properly highlighted by journalist Bernardo Kucinski, the Brazilian Constitution establishes that the country is to have a broadcasting system formed by three components: public, private and state-owned. “Today we have a dominant, poor-quality private communication [system], a feeble and fragmented public communication, and a state-owned communication that came to be ashamed of being state-owned”, this last case a reference by Kucinski to Radiobrás.

Presently, according to news agency Carta Maior, commercial broadcasting companies add up to 80% of the 350 existing TV stations in Brazil, control a higher-than-90-percent audience and collect 95% of the sector’s available revenues.

In the month of May, the First Public TVs National Forum, held in Brasilia, had the presence of Lula for its closing ceremony –which had not been included in the official program. The president declared that when he invited Franklin to be a minister he said: “We are going to make the public TV and will make without much ado. We are going to make it because it needs to be made. More than a will of the government, we are going to make it because our society needs a television like that”.

The president’s speech, which was enthusiastically applauded by the about 500 participants attending the event, accurately reflects the key concerns of the sectors engaged in this process. The “Brasília Charter” (Read the full text), elaborated by government officials and educational, legislative, university and community TV representatives with the contribution of advocacy groups fighting for the democratization of the media (Intervozes, FNDC, Fenaj, etc.) and the social movements present (like the Landless Workers’ Movement, the CUT and the National Students’ Union) presents the framework for what is to be this public TV due to debut on 2 December 2007, on which date digital signal transmissions will start in the country. He who relates that is journalist Altamiro Borges in the article “TV pública “pegou no breu” mesmo?” (Read the full story)

In the document approved, the Forum’s participants affirm that, among other things, “the public TV must be independent and autonomous in relation to governments and the market, and must be funded by multiple sources, with a significant participation of public budgets and non-contingent funds”.

The text also says that “the guidelines for the managing, programming grid and oversight of such programming of the public TV must be the attribution of a deliberative collegiate body, representative of society, in which the State or the Government must not have the majority”.

Abortion and public health

As for the Minister of Health, the PT resolution congratulates him on his courageous attitude of defending the public debate on the decriminalization of abortion. “In this debate on women’s rights, the PT is guided by its historical positions and by the necessity of public health and the preservation of the lay character of the State”, states the document.

Temporão, who brought the subject up, was ferociously attacked by society’s most conservative sectors.

The decriminalization of abortion got even more attention because of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Brazil, and the condemnation on the part of the Catholic Church, which includes threatening to excommunicate pro-abortion legalization politicians.

During the press conference, Lula could not eschew the journalists’ questions about the issue. The president reiterated what he had been affirming since the coming of the Pope was announced: as a citizen, he is against abortion, but as a head of state he defends that abortion should be treated as a public health issue.

According to surveys, there were 1.1 million illegal abortions in Brazil in 2005, which evidences the irresponsibility and the caducity of those who defend the current legislation, which criminalizes even those women who die or have sequellae of illegal abortions.

Third Workers’ Party Congress

The Workers’ Party holds on August 31–September 2 its 3rd Congress. The twelve theses submitted seek to shape the party’s future.

According to the Workers’ Party National Board resolution, “adopting a firm posture in the political-ideological debate underway in the Brazilian society is essential to recover the influence of the PT over the democratic intellectuality, where there still persists a predominantly critical and antagonistic posture in relation to the PT and Lula’s government”.

According to the document approved, the 3rd Workers’ Party Congress is engaged in this effort. The publishing of the theses, the debates organized by locals and other party spheres, as well as by the supporters of the various theses, have started the preparation process leading to the 3rd Congress.

“The 3rd Workers’ Party Congress must be viewed as part of this broader dialog movement by the Party with our social and electoral constituencies, so that it may create a social and political movement that guarantees not only the success of the Lula government, but mainly the institutional continuity of the people’s democratic project”, the text concludes.