|
In a formal ceremony today, Brazilian ministers Jaques Wagner, the head of the Secretariat for Institutional Relations, and Luiz Marinho, of Labor, will deliver the new minimum wage bill to the president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros.
The handover means that the government officially intends to raise the minimum wage on April 1st, from 300 reais to 350 reais. The bill also contains clauses adjusting income tax brackets by 8%. The bill must be approved by Congress before Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva can sign it into law. Lula announced in January his intention of raising Brazil's monthly minimum wage from its current level of US$ 133.69 (300 reais) to US$ 155.97 (350 reais) as of April. The minimum wage is usually readjusted on May 1, the date that Labor Day is commemorated in Brazil. The decision to move the raise to April was the result of negotiations with the workers' central unions, which were demanding that it be implemented on January 1 of each year. The leader of the Communist Party of Brazil in the Chamber of Deputies, deputy Renildo Calheiros (from Pernambuco state), called the new minimum wage a "conquest for the Brazilian worker." Calheiros added that it is exactly what is needed for the working class: "The security of real gains in wages." He pointed out that raising the minimum wage from 300 reais to 350 reais is a real increase of 13%, when you consider inflation. According to the union-linked socio-economic studies organization, Dieese, the real increase is exactly 12.07%, adding that it calculates inflation between May 1, 2005 (when the last MW increase occurred) and March 31 of this year, at 4.1%. The announcement of the new MW, along with an adjustment of income tax brackets of 8%, met with a mixed reaction. The government praised it, the opposition criticized it. Some economists lament the link between the minimum wage and social security (INSS) benefits in Brazil because any increase in the MW increases the problematic INSS deficit. As for the budget, the government admits the new MW will cost US$ 2,94 billion, but spokesmen say the shortfall is only US$ 311,94 million and will be taken care of without any problems. ABr
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.