On steroids?

Oh come ON!!! Why it is always a case against workers rights?

PLEASE DO NOT forget the employers are always getting around to pay less and less to the worker.

Throughout Brazilian history the worker has been constantly usurped, underpaid, explored and denied most basic and essential benefits.

Indeed it is not a wonder that one of the most comprehensible piece of legislation in the world is degraded thus.

Wages are NOT up to a decent standard of living here. AND the cost of transport, education, health, housing, etc is ever eating away the purchasing power of the workers wages.

Now PERHAPS if the minimum wage in Brazil was something like R$1000,00 workers wouldn’t cling so hard to the Labor Laws.

Indeed I should say many people here do NOT believe that UNIONS provide. What I see is that they take away your money and use it to build luxurious, beautiful country clubs with pools and barbecues that you don’t really have the time and opportunity to go to. They are self serving parasites.

The Brazilian common workingman has actually little in the way of dignity as provided by a decent, reasonable pay. The least he can expect is ample protection by law.

The fact is that the Consolidated Labor Laws remain the single most consistent and durable social benefit workers have at their disposal.

When you consider the latest rise in the minimum wage, which is a joke and which is the minimum common denominator for a real lot of people here, you see the logic, the benefit and rationale for the fact that the Consolidated Labor Laws are seen as a heritage and a charter of rights as strong and with as high a standing in the eyes of the people as the Bill of Rights, the Constitution or the Magna Carta.

People who live comfortable lives should be mindful of those who don’t and remember that:

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration". -Abraham Lincoln.

Down with serfdom! Workers of the world unite! Viva la Socialism!!

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to comment. I believe that the points made in the interview missed two important aspects in order for the audience to be better informed about the reality of the Brazilian labour market. The minimum wage in Brazil is among the lowest in the world and the government set up a few mechanisms to compensate for that. Fundo de Garantia, quoted in the interview, and the 13th salary are among them. Those, nevertheless, work only for people in the formal labour market. The distinction is not only one of hours/week but accessing these other benefits and increasing the likelihood of receiving a pension. A full time worker becomes then much more "expensive" than a part-time and this is the reason why employers "forget" to declare the change when it happens. The other issue relates to the turn-over rate. I often see this aspect praised as a positive factor as it allows the possibility of on-the-job training at a diversity of environments. The truth is that the Brazilian labour force is in desperate need of training, employers know it and any opportunity counts. I have a final question: why can't we look at things that are different from what we are used to and rather than seeing and calling them messy try to recognize the environment where they are coming from?

Irrespective of one’s political opinion on labor markets, the correspondent has missed some basic points.
In order to get the mentioned special savings account called FGTS, the worker has to be dismissed without an apparently reasonable cause. Otherwise, he cannot take the money. Therefore, if a worker simply does not show up at work, it will be fired and will not touch its FGTS, neither the 40% fine. If this fact is considered, the analysis of a supposed encouragement to turnover is fatally weakened. Besides other things, was really Brazil a “semi-feudal” country in the 1930’s? I think not.
Despite that I agree with some of the arguments concerning efficiency, we could all profit from a less biased interpretation and a more comprehensive picture of how Brazilian labor market really works.

@The_Brazilian: You are quite correct about the FGTS, but the article is on track, as you say. @Libertatis Vindix and @meninha are also correct that the minimum wage is low. It is low for several reasons:
1) As the article points out, the unions don't care about the unskilled.
2) The labor *burden* (total cost of employing a person) in much higher in Brazil than elsewhere, even elsewhere in South America. Our experience is that total burden in Brazil is about 2.5 times the wage rate. The minimum wage then doesn't seem so low to the employer. Meanwhile, higher-paid employees tend to benefit disproportionately from the non-wage components, while unskilled workers are pushed into an under-paid black or grey labor market for cash wages, to make ends meet.
3) Another factor ensuring that the poor never get ahead are the hour restrictions. It's not a question of paying premium rates for extra hours. The CLT is already full of premium rates. That's usually fine. The problem is that hours are completely inflexible and that greater than minimal overtime is prohibited. Employers lose flexibility. Employees lose the chance at premium wages. Jobs with irregular demand get pushed abroad, into the informal economy, or into the short-term employment cycle mentioned in the article. The main long-term effect is, again, to strangle economic mobility for low-wage employees.

Congratulations again to The Economist!

I first heard these news in a famous radio station in São Paulo.
Came to look at the internet and found that bold article.

Labour market in Brazil is only one more topic generally treated in a rather passionate mode, other than taken by pragmatism.
If productivity is the aim, of course such crazy laws are a burden. They are extremely outdated to our current Brazilian reality, increasing the hiring and firing costs and ultimately creating incentives to our enormous informal labour market (in which people are neglected in their rights in exchange for getting a job and companies who do all right are disadvantaged economically).
But, as in all regarding change, it is easier to see what one loses today other than what the whole gains tomorrow: more formality, more productivity, more investments, more growth, etc.

It's almost a relief to rely on The Economist as a vehicle based on fundamentals to point and create buzz along our greatest burdens to doing business in Brazil.

Thank you!

Congratulations again to The Economist!

I first heard about this article from The Economist referenced by a famous radio station in São Paulo, last Friday.
Came to look at the internet and found the source above - quite a bold article.

Labour market in Brazil is only one more topic generally treated in a rather passionate mode, other than taken by pragmatism.
If productivity is the aim, of course such crazy laws are a burden. They are extremely outdated to our current Brazilian reality, increasing the hiring and firing costs and ultimately creating incentives to our enormous informal labour market (in which people are neglected in their rights in exchange for getting a job and companies who do all right are disadvantaged economically).
But, as in all regarding change, it is easier to see what one loses today other than what the whole gains tomorrow: more formality, more productivity, more investments, more growth, etc.

It's almost a relief to rely on The Economist as a vehicle based on fundamentals to point and create buzz along our greatest burdens to doing business in Brazil.

Thank you!

Dear Sir
Brazilians have a long , long way to arrive at United Kingdom Labor Market standards .Sure! .
However , that awful bureaucracy certainly has a good side effect on somewhat protecting the still Third World Brazilian fragile labor market from “foreign pillage” on Brazilian labor positions , at least on the context of our growing technical and college level qualified labor force-still highly unemployed or underemployed ! !(engineering, college instructors, civilian air pilots, petroleum industry workers, etc...).
It must be remembered that Brazil still fight to not become again a "Hacienda" as many , many countries strongly wishe to ! , where all key technical positions were hold by foreigners experts (Most coming from England , USA, French).
Sure! ,some of them are useful right now , but by just opening the Brazilian labor market to foreign citizens and without being careful with Brazilian huge unemployed youth , just because our labor rules are backward (specially on Off shore petroleum extraction industry )is just to be a complete idiot or worse , a scoundrel with this Brazilian youth .
As an conclusion , it must be considered fully malicious to analyze Brazilian labor markets just from the point of view of getting higher, higher profits (as the Paulista &Carioca Elite do!) , mostly to be sent as Royalties to other countries and forgetting completely either the Political-Strategical and Social side of this very complex question which in how to improve Labor market legislation on Third World (just remember the Gigiant China!).
Brazil really needs heavily foreign investments and substantial techonology transfers right now and zero tolerance with high level withe collor corruption !.

Dear Sir
Although strict correct from the pure Lasses Faire vision of labor wages, the main point maliciously missed on that debate is the social one , namely :
1-The average income of a USA worker: US$4.400 BY MONTHLY
2-The average income of a Brazilian worker -US$822 BY MONTHLY.
Certainly the Brazilian labor legislations reflect that huge income difference, even if appearing quite anachronic from a modern liberal labor relations framework .
Of course that on some localized sectors of Brazilian market labor incomes may be equivalent (especially on Sao Paulo &Rio de Janeiro)
By the way : UK is sadly entering in the staginflation black hole proccess .Is that true ?.I hope not since those good results on Brazil economic performance is entirely due to the quite artifficial inflated prices of Commoddities all over the World .So a very unstable and unsustainable economic variable from any point of view !.