Brazilian Unions Seek Bishops as Allies

La Croix ^ | 6/3/19 | Hadrien Genieys

[marshmallow]

The Catholic Church has been asked to back a national strike against pension changes aimed at cutting the nation's deficit

Brazil's nine largest trade unions, as well as various pastoral commissions, have asked the country's Catholic bishops to help organize a nation-wide general strike on June 14 to protest changes to the country's pension system.

Bishop Roberto Francisco Ferreira Paz, representative of Brazil's National Conference of Bishops, has said that plans of the government of Jair Bolsonaro would harm the welfare of ordinary people.

Major reform of the pension system

The announced pension "reform" is a key element of government efforts to reduce the country's deficit, which reached 78.4 percent of GDP in April.

Changes aim to achieve savings of 1,200 billion reals (270 billion euros) over ten years by setting the minimum retirement for men at 65 and for women at 62 as well as raising to 40 years the minimum contribution period to obtain a full pension.

Today, Brazilians retire on average at the age of 55 and the contribution period does not rise above 35 years.

In the long term, the government wants to set up an individual "capitalization" system, where each worker contributes monthly to retirement in a separate account from other workers. This would replace the current "pay-as-you-go" system, in which all workers contribute to a fund that guarantees pensions and other social security benefits.

The reform will be particularly detrimental to the 34.3 million Brazilians who are in the labor market without an assigned work card.

[livius]

Frankie will be fine with it. He hates Bolsonaro and has written consoling messages to the corrupt leftist Lula in prison.