Ester Brum, 20, heard about the arrival of a team from the campaign of elected mayor Netinho Reis (MDB) in Parque Vila Nova, the community where she lives in Duque de Caxias, in Baixada Fluminense. They were looking for people without a permanent job to work during the election in the city.
Ester wrote down her name on the list of candidates and was one of those chosen. In addition to her, her sister and mother also got temporary jobs.
Without employment, the three worked from August to October in the center of Duque de Caxias, waving Netinho Reis flags. The workday, from noon to 7pm, from Sunday to Sunday, yielded R$800 per fortnight.
“I worked selling candy in traffic and even made more from the candy than from the flag, but I barely managed to see a profit because I spent every day repurchasing the products. In this temporary job I get paid every fortnight, it gives us some relief”, it says.
She says she “wanted the election to last and show the possibility of continuing to work in politics next year.”
Ester was one of the 1.2 million people hired directly by electoral campaigns in Brazil this year, according to data from the financial statements sent by candidates to the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) until last Wednesday (20).
It is not possible to talk about 1.2 million jobs because part of it refers to specific services, such as vehicle transfer or property rental.
More than half of those hired (around 669 thousand), however, worked in accordance with TSE data. But the real number of people involved in campaign action on the streets is even greater, as many of them were included in the accounts in a generic way, as “personnel expenses”.
Contracts with individuals already reported to the Electoral Court total R$1.96 billion of the total R$6.22 billion. Most of the spending was made with companies.
The data shows that the average salary for those who worked in street activities was R$1,020. The value depends on the location, time and function of the work.
Bruna Rocha da Silva, 38, coordinated, from August to October, 11 people who worked in the campaign of councilor candidate Vinicius Cordeiro (Cidadania), in a square in Tijuca, in the north zone of Rio de Janeiro.
The team, including Bruna herself, who received R$1,600 a month for her work, waved flags and handed out leaflets at the entrance of a subway station: “I’m receiving aid, but it’s not enough for everything. This extra money came at a great time” , she stated.
She was a security guard at a bank branch until August. The outsourced company lost the contract with the bank and Bruna was not reassigned. A resident of Morro do Salgueiro, she found out about the temporary vacancy through the local residents’ association.
“I went to ask if they needed people to work during the election period and on the same day there was a meeting with the candidate about what the work would be like. I got the job and became team coordinator.”
The numbers only refer to direct hires made by the campaigns themselves. The new vacancies created in the elections, however, affect other sectors.
The printing industry claims to have increased the number of temporary vacancies to meet candidate demand.
A survey by Abigraf (Brazilian Association of the Graphic Industry) among companies in the sector indicates that 17% of the country’s printers made temporary hires.
The president of Abigraf, Julião Gaúna, states that the printing companies’ planning begins in the pre-campaign, in contact with party officials to measure the level of demand. The objective is to guarantee raw materials to make the saints and pamphlets that flood the streets of the cities.
According to Gaúna, the temporary vacancies created are aimed at the final process of packaging printed material.
“You need to pack, fold, separate. It’s practically manual work, but on the final line. Graphic production is entirely automated,” he said.
The TSE imposes a limit on staff hiring in every election, to prevent transfers from being used to buy votes. For mayoral candidates, the calculation is 1% of the electorate up to the limit of 30 thousand voters and, then, one hire for every thousand voters above this ceiling. For those running for a seat on the City Council, it is half.
In São Paulo, mayoral candidates were able to hire up to 9,592 people. Those seeking a seat as councilor, 4,796.
