The last few weeks have seen many articles and videos published that outline the details of the Bolsonaro government’s proposal for administrative reform. All of these confirm this reform’s destructive character. This brutal reform will put an end to the public service as we now know it, totally modify labor relations, and reach into all spheres of the civil service. While understanding that it is important to know the content of Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC) in detail, we want here to dwell on the steps that must be taken to resist and defeat this attack.
1 – Combat the government and media narratives
The contestation of narratives is very important. Until now, the government has created its narrative and, with support from the big newspapers and TV stations, has been winning the debate. The narrative is always the same: “The country has too many public servants and it can’t keep paying their salaries, which are too high. Public service quality is terrible, and the public servants with their privileges, their laziness, and their job stability are to blame”.
These arguments have been disseminated by governments, including petista (PT – Workers’ Party) administrations, to varying degrees for decades. These arguments are now seen by the population as ‘common sense’. Faced with the deepening social crisis and the rise in unemployment, this narrative is only gaining ground. More than half of all people of working age – 52.7% – are either unemployed, live off “bicos” (sporadic, informal work), or work fewer hours than they would like. Many have depended on the government’s R$600 (US$106) emergency aid to get through the pandemic. This is the social base that the government aims its narrative at, to try and make them see public servants as privileged and the people who are to be blamed for the crisis.
It is necessary to deconstruct these lies and show that the civil service is not weighing the country down – what eats into public accounts are things like expenditures on public debt and company tax exemptions. It is necessary to demonstrate that the attack on public servants is in reality an attack on the public service, and demonstrate what this means for the lives of the poorest, with examples such as what the fight against the pandemic would be like without the publically funded Unified Health System (SUS), or what life would be like without the government-owned Caixa Econômica Savings Bank.
The union movement has made some effort to respond to these narratives, but this effort is still insufficient. It is necessary to broaden these initiatives, and take to the social networks and the streets to challenge these narratives. The candidates of the left also need to take up the banner of defense of the public service in their campaigns, not least because administrative reform will have a direct impact on their cities.
2 – Strengthen the public service team to turn the game around
Even with the reform being underway, public servants have not yet moved up to the level of the response that they need. The pandemic creates enormous difficulties for street demonstrations, distributing pamphlets, and even workplace meetings and assemblies. There is also the attrition caused by distance and remote working, for female employees in particular who, because of machismo, have domestic chores and care for children and relatives on top of their virtual working day. The pandemic has become a real obstacle to mobilization, and this cannot be underestimated.
The movement has sought to reinvent itself, with online activities and assemblies and even motorcade protests. Important demonstrations took place in most capitals on 30 September; the national online rally on 3 October, the anniversary of the state-owned oil company Petrobrás; a national online plenary meeting of the civil service on 24 October; and the rally on the National Day of the Public Servant on 28 October. But this calendar of events cannot serve to relieve the consciences of union leaders. It has to be asked whether or not the union movement and the authorities have actually entered into the hearts and minds of the civil service.
For its part, the government is on the offensive, taking advantage of the opportunity to spread its narratives of lies, such as the lie that the reform will not affect those currently working in the public service. And a part of the public service, as well as some municipal and state-level civil servants and others in state enterprises, are disputing this. But many have not yet been convinced that they will be affected.
We need to win public servants to the struggle, and this will not happen if they do not know what is really at stake. They need to understand the government’s motives and see what the future may hold so that they can pluck up courage and go into the fight. And they need to have hope that they can come out victorious, without falling for talk about the government having enough support to get its proposal approved in Congress and that nothing else can be done. The strength of working class mobilization has already blocked countless votes and changed the balance of power in parliament. The government’s action needs to be fought, and for that public servants need to rely on their own strength. This will be decisive in the contest for popular support.
3 – Organize and unify public servants across all three levels and workers in the state-owned companies
The existing organizations of struggle are either not responding with determination to the challenges posed, or do not have sufficient representation within the sector. The first includes the Fórum das Centrais Sindicais (Forum of Union Centers – which brings together six different union federations), which has proved incapable of being the driving force behind this struggle. The second includes the Forum of Federal Public Servants in National Entities (FONASEFE) and the National Committee in Defense of Public Enterprises, which do not represent municipal and state-level employees. Therefore, the first great task is the building of an Instrument of the United Front that is capable of being the spokesperson and the pole that unites this struggle.
Some initiatives are taking place, and we still need to follow this process without making pronouncements as to which one is the most correct. One such initiative is the attempt to resurrect the National Coordination of Federal Public Service Entities (CNESF) from the ashes. This was an important entity in the fight against the dismantling of the state in the era of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and in its time was responsible for the huge march of 100,000 people in Brasilia. There is also the proposal to draw FONASEFE and the National Committee in Defense of Public Enterprises closer together, as well as the emergence of Fóruns Estaduais de luta (state employee forums of struggle) which have begun to meet in a national Working Group.
Of these initiatives, the most comprehensive and innovative is without a doubt the national Working Group of the Fóruns Estaduais. This is because it can potentially consolidate itself into an important United Front instrument that represents all affected sectors, and is rooted in the direct actions being carried out across the country. After all, the recent demonstrations that have occurred have primarily been led by these state employee forums. Despite their many limitations, these state employee forums of struggle are what we are building anew, with their potential, their predisposition for struggle, and their capacity to involve and unify all sectors that are under attack.
Even so, the important task of consolidating an Instrument of the United Front is far from being consolidated. This will need much patience to overcome the various problems it will pass through during its construction.
The defeats we have experienced recently should serve as a lesson to us. Administrative reform is another step by which the ruling class plans to dismantle the state. Previous attacks such as Constitutional Amendment 95 (the 2016 changes that further limited budget spending), and the more recent rounds of labor and social security reform, were implemented without the working class having a united instrument that could be the one commanding voice that brought unity to the struggle. Without something that unifies and actually represents all of the sectors involved, it will be increasingly difficult to build a common agenda, to unify actions that contest current narratives and communications, unify the forms of struggle, etc.
After the 28 October demonstration on the National Day of the Public Servant, a new agenda must be built, one that moves towards the people openly confronting the government’s proposal, one that discusses and builds a strike of all public servants and workers in the state-owned companies, one that points to the need for a National Meeting of the Working Class and Fighters that, even if only online, consolidates and formalizes an Instrument of the United Front that is capable of defeating the government. We need to march toward the great objective of the defeat of this government: Fora Bolsonaro e sua reforma! (Out with Bolsonaro and his reform!)
This article is an English translation of “Três desafios da luta contra a Reforma Administrativa”, Esquerda Online (EOL), 28/10/2020.
Translation: Bobby Sparks
Comentários