Brazil: Bolsonaro against workers. The unión centrals what i ton TV

Today, the Chamber of Deputies approved, with 379 votes in favor and 131 against, the pension reform presented by President Jair Bolsonaro at the service of the bosses -who owe millions in social security contributions- and the brutal austerity defended by the IMF model. The approval of the labor reform proposed by Temer in 2017 opened the way for a greater wave of attacks and the precariousness of the rights and dignity of the Brazilian working class, which is now threatened with the possibility of retiring at age 65, in addition to the requirement to have contributed to social security for at least 40 years to qualify for a full pension. With this reform, the government also directly attacks the public capitalization system, so it is practically mandatory for workers to hire private capitalization services, with with each month, in addition to the mandatory contribution, they must deposit amounts in these savings accounts to use them once retired. In general, capitalization companies use money from active taxpayers to speculate on the large capital of stock exchanges. This same system of private capitalization was implemented in Chile, which today records absurd figures of suicide rates among the elderly, who without any prospect of a decent retirement, take that drastic measure.


It is also necessary to point out that there are sectors called “progressive” that oppose the current proposal, but they also do not give up the idea of ​​presenting another proposal for pension reform, as is the case of PDT parliamentarians and PT governors, especially the Governor of Ceará, Camilo Santana (PT), who last year carried out a similar reform in his state, where state workers must hire the State Foundation for Supplementary Pensions to have their right to retirement.
Today we should be living a day of struggle against the brutal attacks that the Chamber of Deputies approved against the working class, but unfortunately the main trade union centrals, CUT and CTB, led by the PT and the PcdoB respectively, are crossing their arms, without taking to the streets and following the same faulty tactics they used against the labor reform proposed by Temer in 2017, which ended up being approved by the National Congress.


In the resistance agenda this week, once again, that role is in the hands of young people, who are on their way to Brasilia, where they will participate in the congress of the National Student Union and that on Friday 12/7 will hold a national march against the cuts in the education budget and will continue towards the Congress.
We will not accept any austerity and cuts in the rights of the working class, much less that the class pay the bill of big businessmen who accumulate multimillion-dollar debts with social security, and that are benefited every day by the government with the amnesty of their debts. We defend the immediate suspension of the payment of illegitimate public debt and that a thorough audit of the debt be initiated.


In May, the PSOL legislative block presented four global amendments to the pension reform bill. The proposals aimed to take advantage of financial income, without eliminating the rights of the working class, changing the direction of the reform proposed by Bolsonaro. The proposals anticipated issues that should be debated and driven towards the real reform that the country needs, the tax reform. But a reform that, as proposed by the PSOL, begins by imposing taxes on large fortunes, profits and dividends, increasing the rate of the inheritance tax and the collection of IPVA (Property Tax on Automotive Vehicles) for aircraft and ships. With only these 4 proposals mentioned, it would be possible to raise around R $ 143 billion a year, an annual value higher than the deficit that the government says exists in Social Security, ending the privileges of a minority and guaranteeing the rights of most of Brazil, which is composed of the working class and the retired.

In Socialist Alternative, we understand that the only possible way to stop the attacks promoted by this government of rapine, cuts and austerity is to be on the streets every day, talking with workers, youth, women, dissidents, the unemployed and retired, building a revolutionary resistance to overcome the crisis of the bureaucracy in which the main trade union centrals are immersed. We also support the mobilizations convened by young people, that are at the forefront of the fight against the attacks on rights since June 2013. It is more than necessary to break with the centrals that have chosen to stay in their comfortable offices and that no longer represent and/or fail to speak to the working class, thus opening the way for the construction of a national classist, revolutionary and anti-bureaucratic national organization that we, the 99% need.

Lucas Tiné y Veronica O’Kelly