# BRAZIL OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS:
COURAGEOS REPUBLICAN REFORMS WITH AUSTERITY MEASURES X
WORK’S PARTY AND UNIONS UNDEMOCRATIC, VISIBLE, INVISIVEL TRUCULENT LULA AND CUT’S
CARINVAL (CARNACUT AND CARNALULA)
[ENGLISH VERSION]
SOURCE / LINK: http://emais.estadao.com.br/noticias/tv,programa-do-ratinho-entrevista-michel-temer-no-palacio-do-planalto,70001756234
“Programa do Ratinho*” interview Michel Temer about Operation Car Wash and Pension Reform
Full interview aired this Friday, 28, and is part of the Government's strategy to 'demystify' the reform
Writing – “O Estado de São Paulo” Newspaper
04/28/2017, 14:10
SEE ALSO VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yvyxht0zck
* Programa do Ratinho:" Programa do Ratinho" is a Brazilian television program displayed by SBT, presented by Ratinho (Carlos Massa), and first aired from September 8, 1998 with popular content, music, information, interviews, jokes, humor, fun, the main news from Brazil and the world and its people's participation.
“Programa do Ratinho*” interview Michel Temer about Operation Car Wash and Pension Reform
Full interview aired this Friday, 28, and is part of the Government's strategy to 'demystify' the reform
Writing – “O Estado de São Paulo” Newspaper
04/28/2017, 14:10
SEE ALSO VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yvyxht0zck
* Programa do Ratinho:" Programa do Ratinho" is a Brazilian television program displayed by SBT, presented by Ratinho (Carlos Massa), and first aired from September 8, 1998 with popular content, music, information, interviews, jokes, humor, fun, the main news from Brazil and the world and its people's participation.
“Ratinho” interview Michel Temer on Operation Car Wash, labor reform and
Social Security. Photo:
Reproduction of an excerpt from the interview provided by SBT
“Ratinho” Program this Friday, 28, highlights the interview with the President of the Republic Michel Temer. The program will air from 22h15.
Read too:
• Social networks mock Temer's statements about Women's Day
Mouse went to Planalto Palace last Wednesday, 26, where he recorded the conversation, which lasts 30 minutes. Among the subjects of the interview are the labor reform and Social Security.
During the conversation, Ratinho asks if the President Temer fears the Operation Car Wash: "Zero, I do not have any concern. I always say 'let's The Operation Car Wash work in peace, let the prosecutor fulfill his role, the judiciary Fulfill their role and we will continue working, "replied Temer.
The interview is part of the Federal Government's strategy of "demystifying" the Social Security reform with the help of SBT, a broadcaster with the most popular coverage. On April 20, Temer met Silvio Santos – “Ratinho” himself helped to arrange the meeting. Since then, the SBT started to show small insertions about the reform during the commercial breaks. Mouse had already committed himself to Temer explaining to his public the importance of reform.
STATE GROUP | COPYRIGHT © 2007-2017 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
“Ratinho” Program this Friday, 28, highlights the interview with the President of the Republic Michel Temer. The program will air from 22h15.
Read too:
• Social networks mock Temer's statements about Women's Day
Mouse went to Planalto Palace last Wednesday, 26, where he recorded the conversation, which lasts 30 minutes. Among the subjects of the interview are the labor reform and Social Security.
During the conversation, Ratinho asks if the President Temer fears the Operation Car Wash: "Zero, I do not have any concern. I always say 'let's The Operation Car Wash work in peace, let the prosecutor fulfill his role, the judiciary Fulfill their role and we will continue working, "replied Temer.
The interview is part of the Federal Government's strategy of "demystifying" the Social Security reform with the help of SBT, a broadcaster with the most popular coverage. On April 20, Temer met Silvio Santos – “Ratinho” himself helped to arrange the meeting. Since then, the SBT started to show small insertions about the reform during the commercial breaks. Mouse had already committed himself to Temer explaining to his public the importance of reform.
STATE GROUP | COPYRIGHT © 2007-2017 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
==//==
SOURCE/LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/28/brazil-corruption-unions-strike-michel-temer-austerity
Brazilians sick of corrupt
politicians hit the streets to protest austerity measures
Police clash with striking union workers in
streets of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo as protesters in 26 states demonstrate
against Michel Temer’s proposed reforms
•
Jonathan
Watts in Rio de Janeiro
03.33 BST 19.01 BST
Brazilian unions have ratcheted up the pressure on
president Michel Temer
with a nationwide general strike that closed schools, disrupted transport
networks and led to clashes with public security in several cities.
Demonstrators in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo blocked
key roads with barricades of burning tires on. Riot police used teargas and
percussion grenades to try to disperse the crowds and open the routes.
Brazil's corruption inquiry list names all the power
players – except the president
Read more
Domestic media said it was the biggest general strike
in decades, with protests reported in 26 states and strikes by teachers, bus
drivers, healthcare providers, oil industry workers and public servants.
As night fell on Friday, there were multiple clashes
in central Rio between protesters, who set fire to a bus, and riot police, who
fired dozens of rounds of tear gas.
Cintia Manoel, a municipal employee, joined the crowd
chanting “Fora Temer” (Temer out). Despite the friction, she felt it was
necessary to participate. “I was there primarily against the government, which
I consider illegitimate, and because of the workers’ rights and pension reform,
which made this protest much bigger.”
A demonstrator breaks the windshield of a truck in Rio
de Janeiro. Photograph: Leo Correa/AP
Daniela Barbosa, an elementary school teacher, said
the proposed changes to the pension system would oblige her to work for several
years longer than she wanted.
The protest comes at a difficult time for the labour
movement. Earlier this week, congress passed labour law reforms that weaken
workers’ rights. The figurehead of the Workers party, Luis Inácio Lula da
Silva, is on trial, facing corruption charges.
His successor Rousseff said the strike was a symbol of
courage. “This is a historic day,” she said. “In these difficult time, a fight
for democracy and in defence of our social gains is the duty of all of us.”
Many voters are furious that politicians are insisting
on the need for cuts in benefits and public services even as evidence grows
that they benefited personally from illegal kickbacks on overinflated
contracts.
Eight cabinet ministers have been implicated in the
Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation into corruption at the country’s two biggest
companies, Petrobras and Odebrecht. Temer’s approval ratings have slipped into
single digits, similar to the level of his predecessor, Rousseff, when she was
impeached last year.
A firefighter works douses a burning bus in Rio.
Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Government spokesman Alexandre Parola played down the
significance of the industrial action. “A strike is a part of democracy. It’s
acceptable as long as participants stay within the law. The country is still
functioning,” he noted.
The shutdown was not total. In Rio, bus and metro
companies ran a reduced service. Most shops and banks remained open. But
students were told to remain at home and there were skirmishes between
protesters and police at Santos Dumont airport and the main bus terminal. São
Paulo was hit harder, with a shutdown of many bus lines and fierce clashes on
the road to the Congonhas airport. More protests were expected later in the
day.
“It is going to be the biggest strike in the history
of Brazil,” said Paulo
Pereira da Silva, the president of trade union group Força Sindical.
Nara Pavão, a professor in the political science
department at the Federal University of Pernambuco, said it would be the
biggest mobilization since 1996. He saw this as a sign of a crisis of
representation as voters feel betrayed by politicians.
Flávia Biroli, a political science professor at the
University of Brasília, said planned austerity cuts had stirred up public
anger.
“The general strike shows that the organized sectors
of society clearly understand that the proposals, if approved, will be the end
of the fundamental guarantees provided for in Brazilian legislation, which will
increase instability and poverty.”
Topics
• Brazil
• Unions
• Protest
• Americas
• news
==//==
|
By SIMON ROMERO
|
People broke down a barrier at a group of
shops during a protest against Brazil’s president, Michel Temer, in Fortaleza
on Friday.
|
Paulo Whitaker/Reuters
RIO
DE JANEIRO — A general strike disrupted cities around Brazil on
Friday as unions marshaled resistance to austerity
measures proposed by
the scandal-riddengovernment
of President Michel Temer, reflecting his struggle to persuade voters that his
proposals to overhaul pension systems and labor laws are necessary.
Tensions
flared in Rio de Janeiro, with schools warning parents to keep students at
home, security forces using tear gas on protesters at ferry terminals near
Guanabara Bay and clashes
erupting in Santos
Dumont Airport. In São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, protesters blocked
highways, halted much of the public transit network and shut down access to an
array of public buildings.
The
strike also hit cities elsewhere in Brazil, including Porto Alegre, Belo
Horizonte and the capital, Brasília, though many businesses in the country were
still able to open on Friday, at least partly, or operate at a slower pace than
usual.
“The
strike is completely justified, but I’d be fired if I didn’t go to work,” said
Marco Basaglia, 48, a bank employee in São Paulo who walked to work Friday
instead of taking public transportation. “Temer hates working people. This is
the worst government Brazil has ever had.”
The strike
revealed deep fissures in Brazilian society over Mr. Temer’s government and its
policies. The president remains deeply unpopular after rising to power last
year with the impeachment
of Dilma Rousseff. But
Mr. Temer argues that his overhauls are needed to restore confidence in
Brazil’s weak economy.
|
|
Indeed,
some problems are glaring. The pension system allows many Brazilians toretire
in their 50s,
causing deficits to balloon and depleting resources for basic services like
education and health care. And some economists contend that byzantine labor
laws stymie competitiveness and prevent companies from hiring more workers.
|
Riot police officers fired tear gas at
demonstrators in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, on Friday.
|
Andre Penner/Associated Press
“The
majority of people in this strike are union members defending personal interests,”
said Joel Matos, 49, an engineer in Rio who hurried to work on Friday in the
rain. Mr. Matos, explaining that he was “neutral” on Mr. Temer’s proposals,
said: “Some changes will not change our lives. Others have already happened,
like outsourcing.”
Still,
even at a time when the leftist Workers’ Party of Ms. Rousseff and her
predecessor, Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva, is
also marred by its own graft scandals, the ability of unions to organize the
strike reflected broad dissatisfaction with Mr. Temer and his allies in
Brazil’s political establishment.
A poll this month
showed that 92 percent of Brazilians thought the country was on the wrong path,
with Mr. Temer’s own approval rating standing at just 4 percent. The
survey by Ipsos, a
global market research company, was conducted from April 1 to 12 in face-to-face
interviews with 1,200 people with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus
three percentage points.
While pushing for
the austerity policies, Mr. Temer’s allies in the Senate also seem to have
another priority: curbing
graft inquiries.
With nearly a third of its members under investigation for corruption, the
Senate voted
this week to punish
prosecutors for so-called abuses of power.
Mr. Temer himself
is facing
a claim that he
negotiated a $40 million bribe in 2010 for his Brazilian
Democratic Movement Party,
an accusation he denies. The president’s supporters say he has temporary immunity
from being investigated for matters outside his time in office, which lasts
through 2018.
His
top aides denounced the strike, with Justice
Minister Osmar Serraglio dismissing it as
“nonsense” and “generalized disorder” in an interview. But with members of
Congress seeking to preserve
their own generous pension benefits,
much of the establishment seems ignorant of the mood on the streets.
|
Protesters shouted at the police in São
Paulo on Friday.
|
Nacho Doce/Reuters
On
the eve of the strike, the
Supreme Court ruled Thursday
that elite public servants could collect salaries of more than about $140,000 a
year, a limit established in the Constitution. Justice Ricardo Lewandowski said
it would be unfair for a civil servant carrying out multiple duties to get
“paltry remuneration.”
The ruling, in a
country where roughly half the population scrapes by on a minimum wage of about
$4,000 a year, may
reinforce perceptions that
Brazil’s most privileged public employees are finding ways to enhance their
wealth at a time when the authorities are pressing for austerity measures.
Amid such
developments, some supporters of Mr. Temer’s overhauls say he also needs to
elicit sacrifices from members of the political and economic elite, or at least
do a better job of explaining how the austerity measures could eventually help
most Brazilians.
“If
the reforms are supposed to improve things, why is there so much resistance to
them?” asked Celso Ming, a financial columnist for the newspaper O Estado de S.
Paulo. “Above all, the feeling of the common citizen is that life isn’t just
worse than it was a few years ago, but that it’s getting even grimmer.”
Much
depends on perspective. Investors betting on Mr. Temer’s ability to deliver
helped push Brazil’s main stock index up more than 20 percent over the past
year. But Brazil’s unemployment rate climbed to 13.7 percent in the first
quarter as a harrowing economic downturn grinds on.
“Temer
is sinking the country,” said Camila Oliveira, 24, a saleswoman at a jewelry
store in São Paulo, emphasizing that she also viewed the strike as “garbage.”
Dom Phillips contributed reporting from
Rio de Janeiro, and Paula Moura from São Paulo.
A
version of this article appears in print on April 29, 2017, on Page A4 of
the New York edition with the headline: Brazil Is Gripped by General
Strike Over Planned Austerity Measures. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
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