In defense of our labor rights and our retirement! To prepare the 48 Hour General Strike!

In Brazil, against the reforms of the Social Security, Labor Law and Outsourcing Law, for decent employment and against Temer government and all the corrupt Congress, we held a victorious General Strike on April 28!

We stopped Brazil for 24 hours with approximately 50 million Brazilian workers joined on this day of struggle.
CSP-Conlutas has improved nearly a hundred of Base Committees, which have unified popular movements, trade unions, youth movements and working class in general.

Even thought the explosion of movement, that continues in struggle with disposition and fury against these attacks, Temer and Congress insist on the reform’s approval, to put an end to the historical rights of the workers in Brazil, for which they have fought so hard and sacrificed so much for so long.

That’s why on this May 24th we will occupy Brasilia. The prediction is that 100,000 workers will be on this historic march in defense of our rights!

It is time to defeat the Labor and Social Security reforms and these corrupt politicians of the National Congress. We want the arrest and confiscation of the property of the corrupt and the corrupting companies.

Labor reform
The labor reform brings changes in at least 100 topics from our CLT (Consolidation of Labor Laws). Among them, modifications in vacations, lunch break, the time of displacement and deregulation of the working day. Combined with outsourcing and temporary work, if there is no resistance, the tendency towards to lose decades of working class achievements.

The central point of the Labor reform of the Temer government and its politicians is to change the way companies negotiate with workers. The goal is to give all power to the employer, even if what they want to impose on the worker is outside the law. In fact, it means in labor relations that law would not be worth anything and rights could be downgraded.

The difficult name they gave for this is “Negotiated on the Legislate.” If they want to withdraw rights alleging crisis, restructuring of the company or bad mood of the employer, they can do it without further explanation.

Social Security reform
The government claims that Social Security is harmful on the economy, and that reform is necessary. But the truth is that the government manipulates the calculations and there are hundreds of companies that owe Social Security something about $ 500 billion, from the end of 2016 until today.

The reform intends to increase the minimum age for retirement, the time of contribution and, to be directly entitled to full retirement, the worker must contribute for at least 40 years. This way, the Brazilian people must work to the death. In addition, reform intends to reduce special pensions and applying a transition rule to those who are in the job market today.

CSP-Conlutas does not negotiate rights!
If a right is negotiated, it will be more difficult to overthrow others later. For us, CSP-Conlutas, there is nothing to negotiate when what they present is withdrawing rights. Much less with a government involved in corruption reports.

We call on the Brazilian Labour Union, that are at the forefront of the struggles, for not negotiate any workers’ rights and call a new general strike, this time of 48 hours, until they give up all these projects!