By JORGE LUIZ SOUTO MAIOR*
The succession of events that took place on the 16th, 17th and 18th of June does not authorize us to have any kind of euphoria and constitutes, on the other hand, a great historical opportunity for this entire process of manipulation to be finally understood.
On June 18, 1940, Charles de Gaulle launched, straight from the BBC studios, the “June 18 Appeal”, urging the French not to capitulate to the German invasion. The French Resistance, already existing underground, strengthens.
I use the fact due to the chronological coincidence, since the present appeal is far from matching the grandeur of the protagonist of the Appeal and the extreme gravity of the situation he was experiencing.
In any case, preserving the due proportions, the present text does not cease to be an appeal, as will be seen.
The central concern here is to warn against the problems generated by the inversion of values, which, without realizing it, we end up reproducing and even legitimizing.
I have seen a lot of people optimistic about the “post-pandemic”, believing that the revelations of social ills will be more than enough to generate awareness around the adoption and acceptance of the measures that may be necessary for corrections.
Nothing against being optimistic, but it is necessary that optimism does not become detached from the given material conditions.
Concretely, what has been consolidating among us, without due perception, is the success of the strategy of manipulating information so that, in the midst of so many misfortunes, people still find reasons to be euphoric and even feel happy.
The succession of events that occurred on the 16th, 17th and 18th of June does not authorize us, however, to have any kind of euphoria and constitutes, on the other hand, a great historical opportunity for this whole process of manipulation to be finally understood. .
Let's get to the facts:
– June 10: even in the face of an upward curve in COVID-19 cases (at the time the numbers indicated 39.797 deaths), it is announced, in São Paulo, that shopping malls will reopen. This is a false economic concern, because without money in circulation, sales will not increase. The focus is to divert attention by changing the news;
– June 12: Brazil surpasses the United Kingdom and becomes the second country with the most deaths from COVID-19 in the world, reaching a total of 41.828 deaths and 829.902 infected people, but open malls have queues and crowds of people[I];
– June 16: the IBGE PNAD, bringing data from the last week of May, indicates that of the 169,9 million Brazilians in the economically active population, only 84,4 million had some work, and of these, 29,961 million were in informality , which even suffered a reduction of 870 thousand people in relation to the last evaluation, not because they went into formality, but because they lost even the alternative of livelihood through informal work. In May, the number of people not even looking for a job increased from 16,5 million to 25,6 million;
– June 16: Ordinance n. 545 of the Ministry of Education, without further clarification, amid the mobilization against structural racism, revokes Normative Ordinance n. 13 of the same Ministry, which set a period of 90 (ninety) days for the Federal Institutions of Higher Education, within the scope of their autonomy and observing the principles of merit inherent to scientific, technological and innovation development, to present proposals on the inclusion of blacks (blacks and browns), indigenous peoples and people with disabilities in their graduate programs (Master's, Professional Master's and Doctorate), as a form of affirmative action policies;
– June 16: meanwhile, in the Federal Senate, MP 936 was approved, which made labor relations even more precarious and, seeking to benefit companies, under the false argument of preserving jobs (which in fact was no longer the case visa – in May alone the increase in unemployment was 10,8%, that is, 1 million more people than at the beginning of the month[ii]) proposes a reduction in wages and temporary suspension of employment contracts (including by individual adjustment). The effect of this general reduction in workers' earnings[iii] reflects negatively on the long-awaited reopening of trade, since, without money, workers do not consume[iv];
– June 16: with all these defeats already enshrined, many representatives of the working class and those who defend social rights felt euphoric and considered that the result was a great victory[v] because in MP 936 several tortoises had been included, which reinvigorated terms of MP 905, and these devices, whose insertion (and even the content) flagrantly violated the Constitution, were removed from the final text of the project by agreement of the leaders of the political parties;
– June 16: in the wake of all this, the STF, which, on April 16, in ADI 6363, had already given an indication of the constitutionality of the possibility of reducing working hours and wages through an individual agreement, even rejecting the requirements established in the injunction granted by Minister Ricardo Lewandowski (which was already a major defeat, but which, in the face of something worse, was strongly defended by some labor segments), to assess ADIs 5686 and 5695, declared constitutional the terms of Law n. 13.429/17, including the legislative procedure (clearly disrespected), which would have expanded outsourcing for the purpose of equally reaching the core business of companies[vi];
– June 17: amid the euphoria of part of the formal representation of the working class for the “victory” achieved, the Chamber of Deputies approves MP 927, which instituted the individual agreement as a form of regulation of labor rights, surpassing union action and which , in the final wording, even authorized the suspension of payment of court settlements. And nothing was said about it;
– June 17: without feeling any kind of more forceful objection to the measures to increase the precariousness of working conditions in the middle of the pandemic, the President of the Republic, in a speech at the Palácio do Planalto, during the launch ceremony of the Crop Plan 2020/2021, felt so comfortable that he ended up letting slip the feeling that many of the great “entrepreneurs” in the country have, that a real worker is the one who works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without complaining about anything[vii];
– June 18: when one might expect that something would be said in the mainstream media about it or even that there would be manifestations of repudiation from the labor area or from the politically organized left, the news that takes over the newspapers early on is that of the arrest of Queiroz, and what is seen, from there, is only explanations of euphoria among those from whom some indignation could be expected in the face of so many social and human setbacks;
– June 18: and to avoid any doubt that euphoria will numb minds and avoid senses and critical manifestations of reality, Flamengo, the new prototype of a successful model, for which passions or even lives matter little humanities, confirms his return to the lawns, in a stadium that couples a Field Hospital for patients with Covid-19, to practice a game without people (even from a distance, since it will not be transmitted either), but with the opportune presence of some rulers and many less fans, among them, with extreme sadness, me.
The fact is that June 16th and 17th will go down in history as the days when some of the biggest labor dismantling took place in Brazil, and it is inconceivable, therefore, that this is not viewed and accepted as such. It is essential to perceive how the manipulative way of disclosing these same facts, interspersed with others that bring an appearance of comfort, is fulfilling the function of forging a veiled capitulation.
80 years later, for various reasons, the pertinence of an appeal is renewed, so that false euphoria does not divert us from historical reality and make us allies of those who manipulate, oppress and over-exploit the Brazilian people!
*Jorge Souto Maior is a professor of labor law at the Faculty of Law at USP. Author, among other books, of Moral damage in employment relationships (publishers studio).
[I]. https://g1.globo.com/jornal-nacional/noticia/2020/06/11/com-reabertura-de-shoppings-sao-paulo-tem-filas-e-aglomeracao.ghtml
[ii], https://valor.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2020/06/16/desemprego-cresceu-108percent-entre-a-primeira-e-a-ultima-semana-de-maio.ghtml
[iii]. https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/monicabergamo/2020/06/quase-metade-das-industrias-brasileiras-suspenderam-contratos-ou-reduziram-salario.shtml
[iv]. https://economia.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2020/06/18/reabertura-fraca-do-comercio-em-sao-paulo-preocupa-lojista.htm
[v]. https://www.cut.org.br/noticias/mp-936-aprovada-com-mudancas-no-senado-vitoria-da-unidade-e-articulacao-politica-baa7
[vi]. https://economia.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2020/06/16/por-7-votos-a-4-stf-considera-lei-da-terceirizacao-constitucional.htm
