March 13, 2007
Dear Friends,
I am one of the coordinators of two social projects in and near
São Paulo. The work involves me in some perplexing and
frustrating situations for which my American legal training gives
me more questions than solutions.
Brazil often has laws that seem superior to laws in the United
States. I found this was true when I worked with projects concerning
urban land use by poor people, and I think it is true now as I
work with poor women, prostitutes, and victims of domestic violence.
In both cases I was working with NGOs.
NGOs play an important role in Brazil. For example, Presbyterian
churches can create NGOs to receive government money to run their
pre-school centers. My NGO has contracts with several municipalities
to provide shelters for women who are in danger of losing their
lives and a counseling and referral center for less severe cases
of domestic violence. To provide psychological, social, and legal
services in-house we have on our staffs some 30 talented people
with specialized training. A municipality could provide these
services directly, but because of our experience and because of
bureaucratic public-employee rules, it makes sense for governments
to contract this work out.
If our experience is typical, and I think that it is, these contracts
with NGOs are carefully written by the government. They include
such details as what skills the employees should have, provisions
for their salaries and fringe benefits, how many people are expected
to be served, etc. The NGOs can add some lesser details in work
plans, but the major contractual formalities are dictated by the
governments.
Now a digression. In Brazil, nearly everyone laments the “archaic”
labor laws. Brazilians have low salaries, but some labor laws
help to make up for that. Employers must add 50 percent of the
person’s salary to their budgets to pay for the Brazilian
equivalents of social security, unemployment taxes, union dues,
maternity leave, etc. As a percentage of the salaries, these mandatory
benefits are very high. But, remember, the salaries are low.
In Brazil, everyone who works on the books (about 50 percent
of the workforce, the rest either work off the books or are truly
independent) belongs to a union. There are even employers unions.
The employers unions include, for example, the association of
manufacturers and the “bar” association. (I think
it’s rather refreshing to call a spade a spade!) Periodically,
the employers unions meet with employees unions and hammer out
salary increases in the form of percentages of salaries. For example,
last year, NGOs like ours got a 6 percent increase. These agreed-upon
increases are called “dissídios.” A dissídio
has the effect of law and becomes a legal right of the qualified
employee, who can sue—and collect—for any unpaid amount
of the dissídio.
To my frustration, however, I am aware of no municipal government
that pays for the dissídio in any contract with any NGO.
The last time we were considering a contract with a city government,
we brought up the subject and were told that that government never
pays it. There was no way even to rearrange the contract—to
take from one expense category in order to add it to wages—so
that the dissídio would be paid with minimal increased
cost to the government. Shocked, we checked. São Paulo
government has the same policy! Built into the contracts with
NGOs are phrases designed to hold the governments free of any
responsibility for dissídios, without, of course,
actually saying so. Hundreds of NGOs are left holding the bag.
We could try to sue the governments ourselves, but of course any
NGO that did this would never get another government contract,
although there is a very strong argument that the dissídios
are the financial responsibility of the contracting governments,
despite any attempted contractual exclusion. On the other hand,
if a number of our employees sue us for their dissídios,
all our projects will go down the drain, because there is no other
money to meet the rights of our employees. Incidentally, we are
very proud of our staffs, so it is also easy to be indignant on
their behalf.
If it is true that Brazil is a land of scofflaws, the problem
begins with the government. Yes, here we have some exceptionally
good laws, but the government itself violates them, to the detriment
of individuals and, more important, to the detriment of developing
concepts and practices of citizenship (like demanding government
compliance with the law!). Ironically, our contracts have the
development of women’s self-esteem as one of the goals of
our work. How does one develop self-esteem and simultaneously
accept continued victimization by the government?
In a future letter perhaps I can report progress on getting the
local governments to obey the law. But for now I want to make
a comment on the connection between self-esteem and the exercise
of citizenship. It’s a connection that Americans of my generation
(Vietnam anti-war struggles, Watergate, and the “second
wave” of feminism) might appreciate. Brazilians, whose history
includes a brutal dictatorship during those same years, have few
positive expectations of government outside partisan politics,
and might not make the same connections. These differences in
cultural expectations are part of the endlessly fascinating (and
often frustrating) experience of being a mission co-worker.
Thank you for making it possible.
In mission,
Linnis
The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
41
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