The bill is part of a comprehensive attack on workers’ rights that promises to wreck young workers’ prospects for decades to come. In an effort to bring Brazil’s labor standards in line with the priorities of multinational corporations, Temer is also championing a bill that would allow companies to outsource any job; extend the maximum duration of temporary work contracts from three months to nine months; and end the eight-hour workday. If these reforms pass, young Brazilians would face a grim future of more precarious work, fewer benefits, longer hours, and dwindling hopes for retirement.
Unsurprisingly, both the pension reform and Temer himself are massively unpopular, and after last week’s explosive corruption allegations targeting nearly a third of Temer’s cabinet (and many of his congressional allies), one wonders whether the interim president will have the political capital to pull it off. Even before the corruption charges, Temer’s approval rating was hovering at just 10 percent — the same place Rousseff’s stood on the eve of her impeachment.
That’s what the PT, Brazil’s massive union federations, and the smaller but forceful socialist left are hoping to capitalize on with tomorrow’s general strike.
