On the eve of May 1, the Bolsonaro government decided to take embryonic ideas out of its hat to convey the impression that it is committed to solving the unemployment of 12 million people and the 8.7% drop in Brazilian income.
The balls of the day are the regulation of applications and the creation of a labor management body (Ogmo) for rural workers. The objectives are to combat precariousness and reduce informality.
Any steps in this direction are always welcome. But the government is clearly eager to show service in an election year – and that impacts the maturation of important agendas that should be discussed in a less messy way.
In a note sent to the column, the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (Contag) stated that the Bolsonaro team’s proposal “has no dialogue with the legal representation of rural workers”.
In addition to being designed without consulting the main stakeholders, the curious thing is that the policy announced to improve work in the field was perhaps better suited to improving conditions for drivers and delivery people in cities. To understand why, one must first understand what an Ogmo is and how it works.
Odd job
The labor management body is a non-profit organization set up to organize work in Brazilian ports. Funded by the companies, it has the function not only of recruiting and paying, but also of training people who work in loading goods on ships.
Port workers have the freedom to choose whether or not to take the daily rate. For this reason, they are called “avulsos”. In its seventh article, the Constitution says that there is equality of rights between them and CLT workers.
This means that, despite not having a formal employment relationship with any of the different companies that operate in the same port, the single person receives all the rights, in proportion to the days of service. The calculation is done by Ogmo.
The similarity between port workers and application workers is quite evident. Firstly, drivers and couriers also have the possibility to refuse rides. In addition, they can be linked to more than one platform.
The government insists that the employment relationship between applications and workers should not be recognized, but it seems determined to make companies bear the costs of Social Security.
So why not create a kind of Ogmo for applications? The apps’ systems -which today aren’t that many anymore- could talk to each other and share a series of information.
This would help, for example, in journey control. Thus, drivers would not drive beyond the limits of the human body and a series of accidents could be avoided, such as what happened to former BBB Rodrigo Mussi.
In addition, an Ogmo could also be responsible for standardizing training and security measures. How many couriers would be spared from falls and fractures?
And the main thing: an Ogmo could stipulate clearer systems of remuneration, as long as there was – as in the case of port workers – the participation of legal representatives of workers in the negotiation of tariffs.
For this to happen, a change in the Constitution would be necessary to equate app workers with freelancers, says Vinicius Bonfim, adviser to the Instituto dos Advogados Brasileiros (IAB) and adviser to the Dockers’ Union of Rio de Janeiro.
“And it would have to recognize the unions as someone capable of negotiating directly with the applications. This is the big difference: the application does not want the unionized worker”, adds Bonfim.
Sufficient legal instruments
In the case of rural workers, the idea of creating an Ogmo seems less innovative and even impractical.
Think of the example of a coffee harvester. Unlike drivers and delivery men who can make rides for different platforms in a single day, the most common thing is that he is at the service of the same producer, on the same farm, for a longer period.
In addition, today there are already a series of legal instruments that allow the temporary admission of a worker, emphasizes the note from Contag.
“There are fixed-term contracts, such as harvest, short-term, intermittent work and subsidiary or interim planting (secondary crop). What will be different from this in the government’s proposal and what will come to improve informality rates, guarantee work decent work and labor rights?”, asks the organization.
As usual, it is still not possible to know exactly what goes on in the minds of public policy makers in the Bolsonaro government. Before making untimely announcements, it would be advisable to open an in-depth debate to hear from experts and representatives of workers and employers.
