The Senate approved and is at Palácio do Planalto, awaiting sanction from , which prohibits “the making of discounts, on benefits paid by , referring to monthly fees, contributions or any other amounts intended for associations, unions, class entities or organizations of retirees and pensioners, even with the express authorization of the beneficiary”. After the exposure of the robberies that a dozen entities carried out against retirees, this was a thing of the past. Even so, the PT commissioner defends that this article be vetoed by President Lula. He was once known as Lula, the metallurgist.
Following this question is a visit to the world of national prebends. At the end of the last century, at the time of the metallurgist, Lula was different. He was opposed to charging citizens for a day’s work, under the name of Union Tax. Half a century ago he said things like this:
“The rule of law for workers goes far beyond generic things like freedom of the press and habeas corpus. They need to have autonomy and union freedom.”
Freedom of association meant breaking the legal provision that obliges a category to have a single union in a municipality. In 1979, embodying a new type of unionist, Lula said:
“I think that the union tax has greatly accommodated unionism in Brazil. And the union’s true source of resources should really be the category. Workers should pay their union’s strike fund with the same punctuality [com] that pays for your life insurance.”
Time passed, Lula created the Workers’ Party, was elected president of the Republic three times and forgot his speeches. The union tax was abolished in 2017, during Michel Temer’s government. Eleven thousand workers’ and employers’ unions lost a source of compulsory financing that was worth R$3.5 billion annually.
Once the prebend was extinguished, established interests went to fight. Some turned to crime, robbing pensioners. Others, more refined, came up with the idea of union contributions. Considered constitutional by the Federal Supreme Court, it charges something like the deceased tax on workers, whether unionized or not. The cutie estimates that she pays for services provided. If there is service, the charge would be reasonable, but anyone who believes that half of the unions provide any service that deserves remuneration wins a weekend in Caracas.
Defending Lula’s veto, the senator argues: “I want to draw attention, as a trade unionist that I was, that we cannot condemn everyone for the mistakes of some. There are real entities and fake ones, out to steal retirees.” The doctor fought with praise in the oil workers’ unionism, but he throws chaff into the wheat.
The robbery against retirees is just one detail in the large panel of financing for workers’ and employers’ unions. The issues addressed by Lula 50 years ago are still on the table, but the PT president doesn’t want to hear about that bearded metalworker. (The 20th century beard was thick and black.)
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