9 ms·

I'm from São Paulo and I'm embarrassed about this decision. Brazil's labor laws treat the "workers" as stupid people, unable to negotiate good terms by themselv

by haolez 6y ago

I'm from São Paulo and I'm embarrassed about this decision. Brazil's labor laws treat the "workers" as stupid people, unable to negotiate good terms by themselves. It's much better for them to have an intermediary - the government! - to handle this, and then pay 50% of everything that you make in taxes for this wonderful protection. It's ridiculous.

coldtea 6y ago
>I'm from São Paulo and I'm embarrassed about this decision. Strange, I'm from Europe and I'm proud of this decision. >Brazil's labor laws treat the "workers" as stupid people, unable to negotiate good terms by themselves. No, it just treats them as regular people that deserve the same rights as everyone, but which (as poor people in need of work and individuals) don't have the same negotiating power as a multionational employer to enforce them...
- adnzzzzZ 6y ago
  I'm from Brazil and Brazil is one of the most regulated places on Earth regarding labor laws and it costs the country a lot of productivity. You shouldn't assume that every country is like the average European country and thus what's good for Europeans will be good for the rest of the world.
  - sgt 6y ago
    Exactly my thoughts as well. I think we shouldn't be so quick to pass judgement on decisions made in Brazil without hearing the various points of views. I get the impression is that there's a lot of bureaucracy and internal tension in Brazil. Is this getting at all better over time, or is it spiraling out of control?
    - pcstl 6y ago
      Spiraling out of control and accelerating. Brazil is dominated by very powerful interest groups, some of them corporate, some of them unions, which lobby for laws mostly in order to ensure they keep their power. The unions keep wanting stronger labor laws, but these tend to apply in practice only to high-class workers in very unionized professions, while everyone else is lucky to even get a job at all, because the obligations our labor laws create are so insane that most smaller employers need to use legal loopholes just to be able to pay the bills at the end of the month (one of the most common ones is asking workers to open a personal company and paying their company for "services rendered" instead of the worker - labor courts hate this, but they know if they closed the loophole half of the country would be out of a job the next week) The corporations keep trying to make labor laws weaker, but they tend to do so in ways that screw over the lower-class workers while the high-class, unionized workers are able to maintain most of their privileges. It's a terrible situation. To make it worse, our legislative representatives and a large part of the electorate are very much infatuated with the (false) idea that our labor laws actually "protect" all workers, which makes it very hard to reform them. They are kind of a sacred cow to a lot of Brazilians. I don't see it getting better any time soon. (I'm a US-raised Brazilian who currently lives in Brazil, by the way)
      - rafaelvasco 6y ago
        As a Brazilian I agree completely. You see, a story told several times is a very powerful thing. And Brazilian people have been told such a story by our government for so long that people not only don't realize how broken the system is, but they fight to protect it. To quote the best movie ever made: "You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."
- speeder 6y ago
  I am from São Paulo. About our labor laws: They were created by a populist and fascist (I mean in the literal meaning, guy admired Mussolini) government, they are very, VERY, VEEEERY rigid and extreme, to the point Brazil has more "informal" workers than "formal", thing is, "informal" is just euphemism for illegal, basically the labor laws are so bad that most of the population work illegally. I am 33, and I NEVER, had legal work, never found one, and thus for example I can't get unemployment benefits and many other rights. Reason for that is these jobs are extremely rare, because it is ludicrously expensive to offer them, in some fields of all money a company spend in personel, 95% go to government (usually it is around 60%). --- Now the second subject, is Uber relationship with Brazil, basically government so far been very hostile to Uber, and tries everything to screw with them, thing is, Uber (and competitors) here been a blessing, not just because it meant "cheaper cabs", but because it was only thing that could rid of Taxi Mafia. Here in Brazil we have not only strong medallion laws, but often there are corrupt politicians in the Taxi Mafia, where they find excuses to not grant medallions legally, so they can sell them in exchange of bribes and favors, before Uber existed this got to a point where Taxi drivers would kill competitors on the street for some reasons, for example picking up passengers in an certain area without permission from the Taxi Mafia was a reason for that person to be killed.
  - mateus1 6y ago
    This is an dishonest and naive take at Brazilian labor laws. We were the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, only 60 years before Vargas created the framework to our current labour laws. Before that there were laws but they were seldom followed. Of course the laws could use a reform (they are often confusing) but we have many good worker rights that we shouldn't give up.
    - pcstl 6y ago
      Don't think he's being dishonest. Vargas was indeed a fascist, and I don't see what our being shamefully late to abolish slavery has to do with our labor laws being good or bad.
      - 6y ago
- pcstl 6y ago
  >Strange, I'm from Europe and I'm proud of this decision. It's not strange to us that you Europeans think you know better than us poor stupid little brown people what's better for ourselves. That's your entire history since the 16th Century, assuming yourselves to be the only "civilized" people who should tell everyone else how to live. :)
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >It's not strange to us that you Europeans think you know better than us poor stupid little brown people what's better for ourselves. That's some projecting you're doing there. For one, I'm one of the "brown people Europeans" myself, not the "cool" northern / western ones. And my people had nada to do with the Latin America or Africa or Asia. If anything, we were enslaved ourselves (and part of my country was colonized). In any case, I don't think I "know better than [you people]". In fact I agree with the law passed by YOUR country - so if anything, I merely think your legislators and fellow citizens who voted for it know better than you do.
- siliconapex 6y ago
  > Strange, I'm from Europe and I'm proud of this decision. Maybe you should colonize them again and enlighten them of your correct perspective.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
How do you reconcile this opinion with the idea that there is an inherent power imbalance between employer and employee. Employers typically have way more financial and legal ability to negotiate themselves a better position versus one individual employee.
vidarh 6y ago
Where are you getting 50% from? Everything I can find suggests tax rates in Brazil are below those of most OECD countries, and well below the OECD average for example, and the full tax wedge (which includes employer contributions) average for OECD for every category they report on is below 50% [1]. [1] OECD numbers are available from OECD's Taxing Wages 2020 report: https://www.oecd.org/tax/taxing-wages-20725124.htm https://www.oecd.org/tax/taxing-wages-20725124.htm
- csomar 6y ago
  You are looking at taxes. There is probably more taxes in the form of health insurance / retirement thing. It's incomparable to Europe since in most EU countries you probably get some coverage in return to the money you paid while, in third-world countries, health care is sub-bar or non-existent. As for retirement, inflation will probably eat that.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    The numbers I compared to were the "full tax wedge" numbers which includes social service payments both on the employee AND employer side on top of income taxes. I on purpose picked the category that gives the highest numbers in the OECD report, well above the numbers people will see on their tax returns in most cases. I'm sure the commenter above was including something else, which is what I'm curious about, given that as far as I can tell the highest marginal federal tax rate I can find is only 27.5%, and average effective rates far lower, but I don't know what other costs people might incur. If Brazil is in fact a higher tax country than most of the wealthiest countries in the world, I'd love to know more.
  - aprdm 6y ago
    Brazil health care is actually decent, better than the American for sure. Universities are also free.
    - stephenfg 6y ago
      Regarding universities, they may be free, but the number of admissions is very, very limited. The competition is very harsh. In reality, most people who are able to get in are those capable of paying for very good schools or preparatory courses, and these courses can be very expensive [0]. Sometimes, people have to try for years before being able to join those universities [1]. When your family is very poor, this situation makes it impossible for the student to keep on trying. Sometimes parents can't keep paying for the preparatory course, or worse, the student may have to forfeit it's dreams of studying in favor of working and helping with household expenses. As seen in [0], most people studying in free universities are actually in a pretty good financial situation. Sometimes, people from very poor families manage to study for free, but this is rare and often newsworthy [2]. In my humble opinion, I don't think universities are really free. There are many financial costs associated with studying in a public university. [0] http://www.brasil-economia-governo.org.br/2016/06/15/como-as-universidades-publicas-no-brasil-perpetuam-a-desigualdade-de-renda-fatos-dados-e-solucoes/ http://www.brasil-economia-governo.org.br/2016/06/15/como-as... [1] https://g1.globo.com/pb/paraiba/noticia/2020/01/29/paraibano-e-primeiro-lugar-em-medicina-na-usp-o-principal-foi-entender-quem-eu-era.ghtml https://g1.globo.com/pb/paraiba/noticia/2020/01/29/paraibano... [2] https://diariodonordeste.verdesmares.com.br/metro/estudante-que-viajava-53km-diariamente-para-estudar-em-fortaleza-consegue-aprovacao-em-medicina-1.2204539 https://diariodonordeste.verdesmares.com.br/metro/estudante-...
Kaze404 6y ago
Please enlighten us on how you would negotiate "good terms" (as in, not being a figurative slave) with Uber.
- haolez 6y ago
  I'd work where it pays more. If Uber isn't this place, they will eventually be out competed.
  - Kaze404 6y ago
    Do you think anyone in Brazil drives for Uber by choice? The Civil Engineers and Lawyers who can't find jobs in their fields? I have a friend who got a masters in Chemical Engineering 5 years ago and to this day sells cupcakes for a living. I know how nice it is to live in this neoliberal bubble of the free market, but I suggest you step outside and take a look at the reality of the country you live in.
gnulinux 6y ago
What a strange comment. > Brazil's labor laws treat the "workers" as stupid people This has nothing to do with stupidity, intelligence or anything like that. This has to do with leverage. A multi-national giant corporation like Uber has a lot of leverage over Brazilian workers. If Uber treats them like figurative slaves and gives them too little money, workers have very little they can do against this. It is government's responsibility to protect people from this power imbalance. Yes Uber should have a freedom to charge/pay whatever market accepts and workers should have freedom to negotiate their own benefits. But at the same time Uber needs to implement a minimum care for their workers, and if not government should be able to enforce them to do so.
- gcbw3 6y ago
  > What a strange comment. Welcome to brazil, where the middle class is almost bellow poverty line, but they still vote conservative because they dream they will become millionaires overnight, only if they just manage to elect the right-most wing candidate. You have a 99.99% employee base voting for the interest of the business owners. It's crazy.
  - devtul 6y ago
    If you think it only makes sense to hold conservative values if you are rich, it only means you don't know what you are talking about.
    - gcbw3 6y ago
      when conservative means conservation of the oligopoly, then yes.
  - ianmobbs 6y ago
    They're just doing what they've been told is best for them by Bolsonaro, the same way the largely-impoverished American South votes for Trump. (I assume it's a similar voting block in the UK for Johnson but I haven't looked it up)
  - lvass 6y ago
patgrdj 6y ago
An example of Brazilian Mutt Syndrome where any foreign business/power/person/interest/whatever is more valued than the life or rights of a local.
AlexandrB 6y ago
> unable to negotiate good terms by themselves. I would love to see a single cite of a successful negotiation by a driver with ride-sharing services regarding matters of pay or pricing. Negotiation is not possible in contracts of adhesion.
dzonga 6y ago
wow!! slow down. you being from sao paulo, doesn't mean anything in the rights of workers. your comment would've been relevant, if you were an uber driver in sao paolo. but yeah gvt protections are very much needed in every country to protect the hoi polloi against corporations.
jariel 6y ago
"unable to negotiate good terms by themselves." There's a massive power asymmetry between a mega international corporation and an individual. It has nothing to do with 'intelligence' or 'competence'. Surpluses go to the power. If employees had power, they'd be able to 'negotiate' better terms on their own, they never well. At the 'low end' of the labour market, we have to have some kind of regulations or else they would get paid the 'bare minimum to survive' and an entire economy of accommodation, food, services would pop up around that system. Maybe like favelas? So the issue is: 'where do we draw the line?' - which is really hard.
mrlala 6y ago
>Brazil's labor laws treat the "workers" as stupid people, unable to negotiate good terms by themselves. Hmm, ok that's quite a view. I would say that nearly all works are certainly unable to negotiate good terms by themselves. The only workers that can negotiate their own terms are the small minority that are very highly skilled and in demand... laws like this are trying to help the vast vast majority who have NO power because the employer can just replace them with anyone else at the drop of a hat.
walshemj 6y ago
You dont know labour relations in Latin America is more like the bad old days of the Pinkertons in the USA?

by haolez 6y ago

coldtea 6y ago

>I'm from São Paulo and I'm embarrassed about this decision. Strange, I'm from Europe and I'm proud of this decision. >Brazil's labor laws treat the "workers" as stupid people, unable to negotiate good terms by themselves. No, it just treats them as regular people that deserve the same rights as everyone, but which (as poor people in need of work and individuals) don't have the same negotiating power as a multionational employer to enforce them...

adnzzzzZ 6y ago
I'm from Brazil and Brazil is one of the most regulated places on Earth regarding labor laws and it costs the country a lot of productivity. You shouldn't assume that every country is like the average European country and thus what's good for Europeans will be good for the rest of the world.
- sgt 6y ago
  Exactly my thoughts as well. I think we shouldn't be so quick to pass judgement on decisions made in Brazil without hearing the various points of views. I get the impression is that there's a lot of bureaucracy and internal tension in Brazil. Is this getting at all better over time, or is it spiraling out of control?
  - pcstl 6y ago
    Spiraling out of control and accelerating. Brazil is dominated by very powerful interest groups, some of them corporate, some of them unions, which lobby for laws mostly in order to ensure they keep their power. The unions keep wanting stronger labor laws, but these tend to apply in practice only to high-class workers in very unionized professions, while everyone else is lucky to even get a job at all, because the obligations our labor laws create are so insane that most smaller employers need to use legal loopholes just to be able to pay the bills at the end of the month (one of the most common ones is asking workers to open a personal company and paying their company for "services rendered" instead of the worker - labor courts hate this, but they know if they closed the loophole half of the country would be out of a job the next week) The corporations keep trying to make labor laws weaker, but they tend to do so in ways that screw over the lower-class workers while the high-class, unionized workers are able to maintain most of their privileges. It's a terrible situation. To make it worse, our legislative representatives and a large part of the electorate are very much infatuated with the (false) idea that our labor laws actually "protect" all workers, which makes it very hard to reform them. They are kind of a sacred cow to a lot of Brazilians. I don't see it getting better any time soon. (I'm a US-raised Brazilian who currently lives in Brazil, by the way)
    - rafaelvasco 6y ago
      As a Brazilian I agree completely. You see, a story told several times is a very powerful thing. And Brazilian people have been told such a story by our government for so long that people not only don't realize how broken the system is, but they fight to protect it. To quote the best movie ever made: "You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."
speeder 6y ago
I am from São Paulo. About our labor laws: They were created by a populist and fascist (I mean in the literal meaning, guy admired Mussolini) government, they are very, VERY, VEEEERY rigid and extreme, to the point Brazil has more "informal" workers than "formal", thing is, "informal" is just euphemism for illegal, basically the labor laws are so bad that most of the population work illegally. I am 33, and I NEVER, had legal work, never found one, and thus for example I can't get unemployment benefits and many other rights. Reason for that is these jobs are extremely rare, because it is ludicrously expensive to offer them, in some fields of all money a company spend in personel, 95% go to government (usually it is around 60%). --- Now the second subject, is Uber relationship with Brazil, basically government so far been very hostile to Uber, and tries everything to screw with them, thing is, Uber (and competitors) here been a blessing, not just because it meant "cheaper cabs", but because it was only thing that could rid of Taxi Mafia. Here in Brazil we have not only strong medallion laws, but often there are corrupt politicians in the Taxi Mafia, where they find excuses to not grant medallions legally, so they can sell them in exchange of bribes and favors, before Uber existed this got to a point where Taxi drivers would kill competitors on the street for some reasons, for example picking up passengers in an certain area without permission from the Taxi Mafia was a reason for that person to be killed.
- mateus1 6y ago
  This is an dishonest and naive take at Brazilian labor laws. We were the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, only 60 years before Vargas created the framework to our current labour laws. Before that there were laws but they were seldom followed. Of course the laws could use a reform (they are often confusing) but we have many good worker rights that we shouldn't give up.
  - pcstl 6y ago
    Don't think he's being dishonest. Vargas was indeed a fascist, and I don't see what our being shamefully late to abolish slavery has to do with our labor laws being good or bad.
    - 6y ago
pcstl 6y ago
>Strange, I'm from Europe and I'm proud of this decision. It's not strange to us that you Europeans think you know better than us poor stupid little brown people what's better for ourselves. That's your entire history since the 16th Century, assuming yourselves to be the only "civilized" people who should tell everyone else how to live. :)
- coldtea 6y ago
  >It's not strange to us that you Europeans think you know better than us poor stupid little brown people what's better for ourselves. That's some projecting you're doing there. For one, I'm one of the "brown people Europeans" myself, not the "cool" northern / western ones. And my people had nada to do with the Latin America or Africa or Asia. If anything, we were enslaved ourselves (and part of my country was colonized). In any case, I don't think I "know better than [you people]". In fact I agree with the law passed by YOUR country - so if anything, I merely think your legislators and fellow citizens who voted for it know better than you do.
siliconapex 6y ago
> Strange, I'm from Europe and I'm proud of this decision. Maybe you should colonize them again and enlighten them of your correct perspective.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

How do you reconcile this opinion with the idea that there is an inherent power imbalance between employer and employee. Employers typically have way more financial and legal ability to negotiate themselves a better position versus one individual employee.

vidarh 6y ago

Where are you getting 50% from? Everything I can find suggests tax rates in Brazil are below those of most OECD countries, and well below the OECD average for example, and the full tax wedge (which includes employer contributions) average for OECD for every category they report on is below 50% [1]. [1] OECD numbers are available from OECD's Taxing Wages 2020 report: https://www.oecd.org/tax/taxing-wages-20725124.htm https://www.oecd.org/tax/taxing-wages-20725124.htm

csomar 6y ago
You are looking at taxes. There is probably more taxes in the form of health insurance / retirement thing. It's incomparable to Europe since in most EU countries you probably get some coverage in return to the money you paid while, in third-world countries, health care is sub-bar or non-existent. As for retirement, inflation will probably eat that.
- vidarh 6y ago
  The numbers I compared to were the "full tax wedge" numbers which includes social service payments both on the employee AND employer side on top of income taxes. I on purpose picked the category that gives the highest numbers in the OECD report, well above the numbers people will see on their tax returns in most cases. I'm sure the commenter above was including something else, which is what I'm curious about, given that as far as I can tell the highest marginal federal tax rate I can find is only 27.5%, and average effective rates far lower, but I don't know what other costs people might incur. If Brazil is in fact a higher tax country than most of the wealthiest countries in the world, I'd love to know more.
- aprdm 6y ago
  Brazil health care is actually decent, better than the American for sure. Universities are also free.
  - stephenfg 6y ago
    Regarding universities, they may be free, but the number of admissions is very, very limited. The competition is very harsh. In reality, most people who are able to get in are those capable of paying for very good schools or preparatory courses, and these courses can be very expensive [0]. Sometimes, people have to try for years before being able to join those universities [1]. When your family is very poor, this situation makes it impossible for the student to keep on trying. Sometimes parents can't keep paying for the preparatory course, or worse, the student may have to forfeit it's dreams of studying in favor of working and helping with household expenses. As seen in [0], most people studying in free universities are actually in a pretty good financial situation. Sometimes, people from very poor families manage to study for free, but this is rare and often newsworthy [2]. In my humble opinion, I don't think universities are really free. There are many financial costs associated with studying in a public university. [0] http://www.brasil-economia-governo.org.br/2016/06/15/como-as-universidades-publicas-no-brasil-perpetuam-a-desigualdade-de-renda-fatos-dados-e-solucoes/ http://www.brasil-economia-governo.org.br/2016/06/15/como-as... [1] https://g1.globo.com/pb/paraiba/noticia/2020/01/29/paraibano-e-primeiro-lugar-em-medicina-na-usp-o-principal-foi-entender-quem-eu-era.ghtml https://g1.globo.com/pb/paraiba/noticia/2020/01/29/paraibano... [2] https://diariodonordeste.verdesmares.com.br/metro/estudante-que-viajava-53km-diariamente-para-estudar-em-fortaleza-consegue-aprovacao-em-medicina-1.2204539 https://diariodonordeste.verdesmares.com.br/metro/estudante-...

Kaze404 6y ago

Please enlighten us on how you would negotiate "good terms" (as in, not being a figurative slave) with Uber.

haolez 6y ago
I'd work where it pays more. If Uber isn't this place, they will eventually be out competed.
- Kaze404 6y ago
  Do you think anyone in Brazil drives for Uber by choice? The Civil Engineers and Lawyers who can't find jobs in their fields? I have a friend who got a masters in Chemical Engineering 5 years ago and to this day sells cupcakes for a living. I know how nice it is to live in this neoliberal bubble of the free market, but I suggest you step outside and take a look at the reality of the country you live in.

gnulinux 6y ago

What a strange comment. > Brazil's labor laws treat the "workers" as stupid people This has nothing to do with stupidity, intelligence or anything like that. This has to do with leverage. A multi-national giant corporation like Uber has a lot of leverage over Brazilian workers. If Uber treats them like figurative slaves and gives them too little money, workers have very little they can do against this. It is government's responsibility to protect people from this power imbalance. Yes Uber should have a freedom to charge/pay whatever market accepts and workers should have freedom to negotiate their own benefits. But at the same time Uber needs to implement a minimum care for their workers, and if not government should be able to enforce them to do so.

gcbw3 6y ago
> What a strange comment. Welcome to brazil, where the middle class is almost bellow poverty line, but they still vote conservative because they dream they will become millionaires overnight, only if they just manage to elect the right-most wing candidate. You have a 99.99% employee base voting for the interest of the business owners. It's crazy.
- devtul 6y ago
  If you think it only makes sense to hold conservative values if you are rich, it only means you don't know what you are talking about.
  - gcbw3 6y ago
    when conservative means conservation of the oligopoly, then yes.
- ianmobbs 6y ago
  They're just doing what they've been told is best for them by Bolsonaro, the same way the largely-impoverished American South votes for Trump. (I assume it's a similar voting block in the UK for Johnson but I haven't looked it up)
- lvass 6y ago

patgrdj 6y ago

An example of Brazilian Mutt Syndrome where any foreign business/power/person/interest/whatever is more valued than the life or rights of a local.

AlexandrB 6y ago

> unable to negotiate good terms by themselves. I would love to see a single cite of a successful negotiation by a driver with ride-sharing services regarding matters of pay or pricing. Negotiation is not possible in contracts of adhesion.

dzonga 6y ago

wow!! slow down. you being from sao paulo, doesn't mean anything in the rights of workers. your comment would've been relevant, if you were an uber driver in sao paolo. but yeah gvt protections are very much needed in every country to protect the hoi polloi against corporations.

jariel 6y ago

"unable to negotiate good terms by themselves." There's a massive power asymmetry between a mega international corporation and an individual. It has nothing to do with 'intelligence' or 'competence'. Surpluses go to the power. If employees had power, they'd be able to 'negotiate' better terms on their own, they never well. At the 'low end' of the labour market, we have to have some kind of regulations or else they would get paid the 'bare minimum to survive' and an entire economy of accommodation, food, services would pop up around that system. Maybe like favelas? So the issue is: 'where do we draw the line?' - which is really hard.

mrlala 6y ago

>Brazil's labor laws treat the "workers" as stupid people, unable to negotiate good terms by themselves. Hmm, ok that's quite a view. I would say that nearly all works are certainly unable to negotiate good terms by themselves. The only workers that can negotiate their own terms are the small minority that are very highly skilled and in demand... laws like this are trying to help the vast vast majority who have NO power because the employer can just replace them with anyone else at the drop of a hat.

walshemj 6y ago

You dont know labour relations in Latin America is more like the bad old days of the Pinkertons in the USA?