Workers’ rights and social protection in Brazil – Legal and policy gaps (original) (raw)
The impact of the economic crisis on labor rights in Brazil
Revista Katálysis
This article carries out bibliographical research and analyzes the situation of the Brazilian workers in the context of the current national economic crisis, demonstrating an increase in unemployment rates after the approval of the 2017 labor reform by the National Congress. The economic analysis shows that the reform (considered here a counter-reform) was a measure of counter-trend planned by the capitalists to cope with the fall in profit rates. The trade unions’ struggle was not able to avoid the regressive changes in the Brazilian labor legislation, which deteriorate the labor contracts and the living conditions of the working class.
Unoesc International Legal Seminar, 2016
This work lies in the study of social fundamental right to decent work and most specifically in the fight against the work in analogous conditions to slavery. From the analysis of the Brazilian constitutional text, its resulting legislative policies and factual statistics data, it is presented, as the central research problem, some possible lacks of forecasts to ensure the so called decent work and the effective efforts to eradicate slave labor in Brazil. This theme is becoming one of the most worldwide debated issues, by the hand of the protective organizations for human rights. Considering the statistical analysis that prove the existence of serious violations of human rights in terms of social fundamental rights to decent work, it is justified the importance of this research, in the contemporary scenario, about the laboring under slavery conditions. In this context, the goal is to analyze the possible protection which can be provided-or its eventual lacks-considering the content of the Constitutional Amendment 81/2014 for the Article 243 of the Federative Republic of Brazil constitution, all in order to clarify whether the new constitutional rules contribute to the effectiveness of the social fundamental right to work, as a guideline for policies launched from the constitutional text against the contemporary forms of slavery. 2 METHODOLOGY It is adopted a comparative form of the deductive method with the help of specialized law and sociological literature as references for quotation and, for sure, the core constitutional text. The research analyzes, initially, the relationship between public policymaking and the enforcement of Constitutional rights, most especially, the social fundamental rights, and so on, to right to work under decent conditions, effort which scrutinizes the notions of contemporary slave labor in opposition to the principle of human dignity. From the released ideas, the work follows studying the new Article 243 of the Brazilian Constitution, in order to raise some solution for the research problem, considering the practice of imposing workers any restriction to their freedom as something rude as to suppress their dignity by degrading work with deprivation of liberty.
Employment Policies in Brazil: History, Scope and Limitations
2010
Although Brazil has had consolidated labour-market institutions since the 1940s, policies to help unemployed workers find a job only began in the 1970s. This was made possible by the creation of the National Employment System (Sistema Nacional de Emprego, SINE). Before that there was only one compensation mechanism for workers who lost their jobs, the Severance Pay Indemnity Fund (Fundo
Brazil: The Pressure Points in Labor Legislation
2000
Brazil's experience shows that the economic and political history of a country is a critical determinant of which labor laws influence wages and employment, and which are not binding. Long periods of high inflation, illiteracy of the workforce, and biases in the design and enforcement of labor legislation bred by the country's socioeconomic history are all important in determining the reach of labor laws. Defying conventional wisdom, these factors are shown to affect labor market outcomes even in the sector of employment regarded as unregulated. Following accepted practice in Brazil, we distinguish regulated from unregulated employment by determining whether or not the contract has been ratified by the Ministry of Labor, viz., groups of workers with and without signed work booklet. We then examine the degree of adherence to labor laws in the formal and informal sectors, and finds "pressure points"-viz., evidence of the law on minimum wage, work-hours, and payment timing being binding on outcomes-in both the formal and informal sectors of the Brazilian labor market. The findings of the paper imply that in terms of the design of legislation, informality in Brazil is mainly a fiscal, and not a legal phenomenon. But the manner in which these laws have been enforced is also critical determinant of informality in Brazil: poor record-keeping has strengthened the incentives to stay informal that are already built into the design of the main social security programs, and ambiguities in the design of labor legislation combined with slanted enforcement by labor courts have led to workers effectively being accorded the same labor rights whether or not they have ratified contracts. The incentives to stay informal are naturally higher for workers who are assured of protection under labor legislation regardless of the nature of their contract, which only alters their financial relationship with the government. The paper concludes that informality in Brazil will remain high as long as labor laws remain ambiguous and enforced with a clear pro-labor bias, and social security programs lack tight benefitcontribution linkages and strong enforcement mechanisms.
The purpose of this communication is to analyze the measures proposed and / or implemented by the Brazilian State in the 1990s, especially by the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002), aimed at reducing state control over labor relations.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
This paper summarizes findings and conclusions from our application of the Economic and Social Rights Fulfillment Index developed by Fukuda-Parr, Lawson-Remer and Randolph (2009) to the states of Brazil. The key features of this methodology in assessing economic and human rights fulfillment is the focus on state obligations rather than only on human outcomes, and reference to both level of state resources and the historic achievements of comparator state parties as criteria in assessment. Our results show that none of the states of Brazil are completely meeting their obligations to fulfill economic and social rights although some are far more successful than others, and that fulfillment does not depend on income. States struggle most to meet their obligations to realize the right to decent work and adequate housing, but are somewhat better and meeting their obligations to fulfill the rights to education, the highest attainable standard of health and adequate food. Furthermore, a ranking of the states based on our findings differs significantly from rankings based on GDP per capita or the state-level Human Development Index values alone. This paper summarizes our methodology and findings and also proposes several avenues for further study.
Social policies and redistribution in Brazil. Global Labour University Working Paper, No. 26. 2014
This paper aims at analyzing the contribution of social policies to declining rates of income inequalities in Brazil since the 1990s. Based on a framework of historical institutionalism, Brazil is characterised as a traditionally patrimonial society, marked by the institution of slavery. Important ruptures occurred during democratization in the 1980s, when social movements successfully fought for social rights which featured prominently in the democratic constitution of 1988. During the 1990s a contradictory confluence of these achievements and neoliberal reforms led to the promotion of 'inclusive liberalism'. From the mid-2000s onwards policies began to shift in the direction of 'developmental welfare', combining active state interventionism in economic and social policies with targeted cash transfers. This combination avoided the pitfalls of 'inclusive liberalism' and promoted a considerable reduction of social inequalities.
As the 14th Latin American country, Brazil has ratified the ILO Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, No. 189 (2011) on 31 January 2018. Brazil has the largest share of domestic workers out of all Latin American countries. The majority of the around 7 million paid domestic workers are Black women from economically poor backgrounds who face intersectional injustices based on their gender, race and class. Nevertheless, Brazilian domestic workers have been organizing and making their voices heard since 1936. Ever since, their movement has been crucial to the amplification of rights for paid domestic workers. Paid domestic work in Brazil had been at the margins of labour legislation for centuries. Not only were domestic workers explicitly excluded from the 1943 Brazilian Labour Code, but through these exclusions, conservative discourses were predominant, which did not recognize the social and economic value of this type of work. Alexandre Fraga (2016) points out how paid domestic work was practically completely unregulated until the first labour rights for this sector were outlined in the Law nº5.859 in 1972. Only after the military regime ended, and as a result of the democratisation process and the formulation of a new constitution in 1988, did domestic workers achieve real progress in terms of legislative expansion. The full professional recognition of paid domestic workers as part of the working class with the same benefits as all other workers remains the core vision of the paid domestic workers' movement. The amendment of the constitution to end second-class treatment of domestic workers, with the Complementary Law 150 of 2015, is a milestone in the history of equality in Brazilian democracy. However, many inequalities persist, such as low wages and the small number of workers without legal contracts (65%). In our paper, we would like to outline the structural challenges for paid domestic work and the movement of domestic workers in Brazil with regards to legislative changes which have taken place. In this analysis of the historical configurations surrounding the legal processes concerning this category of workers, we highlight how the advances were won by the struggle of paid domestic workers, while conservative structures persist and impede their gaining of full labour rights. Thus, our main objective is to understand how the legislative advances have been negotiated in favour of the employers, not considering totally the working class. To achieve this goal, the research is conducted through qualitative methodology, analyzing the legislative, cultural and economic aspects and each moment of progress of labor rights for this category. Interviews have been conducted in the year 2017, with trade unionists of the category in relation to their history, struggle, current challenges and their political points of view. Thus, our article aims to contribute to critical thinking about social movements, the advances of democracy, as well as the complexities of dialogues and alliances between the feminist movement, the black feminist movement, and the trade union movement.
Rising Brazil: What Role for Human Rights
Thank you to Rogerio Arantes and Rossana Rocha Reis in particular for the kind invitation. It is a pleasure to be here. I very much look forward to the discussions this morning as my remarks will be on issues that you are the real experts on.
Brazilian Labour History Recent Trends and Perspectives: An Introduction1
In recent years, Brazilian labour and working-class history has made great strides. New generations of historians, both in Brazil and abroad, have extended the scope of the field to include new and little explored areas, such as gender, ethnicity, informal labour, and the connections between forced and free work.2 This expanding scholarship has also shed new light on more standard topics, such as strikes, unionism, political participation, and the role of labour policies and labour law in redefining workers strategies of struggle for their rights, as well as in shaping new understandings on working-class citizenship.3 They have also expanded the geographical scope of the studies, originally confined to the main industrial areas (particularly, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro), offering a much broader and complex picture of the regional diversity that characterises a semi continental country marked by huge inequalities and by coexistence or even integration between archaic and modern productive processes and labour relations.4 Many of these studies have analysed specific occupational and local communities, focusing on the different cultural, political and social aspects of the working class formation in the country. The use of new sources, such as the social and political police archives (opened to the public during the 1990s) as well as judiciary papers, alongside the extensive use of oral history interviews, has contributed tremendously to the expanded scope and depth that characterise this new scholarship. There is no doubt that the political scenario of the country since the redemocrati-sation process of the 1970s and 1980s has impacted on the academic production and influenced to a great extent the labour historians' research agenda. From the labour his