Nesta quinta-feira (17/03), o site IT Decisions, que faz matérias somente em inglês e cobre o mercado de TI do Brasil para público externo, veiculou uma matéria sobre o estado de greve dos trabalhadores de TI do Estado de São Paulo. Na reportagem, destaca-se a entrevista feita pela jornalista Angelica Mari, com o presidente do Sindpd Antonio Neto.
Com o título “São Paulo IT workers fight for rights”, que traduzido para o português fica: Trabalhadores de TI o Estado de São Paulo lutam por direitos, a matéria detalha as reivindicações do Sindpd perante o sindicato patronal e mostra que os trabalhadores da categoria tem sido de fundamental importância para o crescimento nacional do setor.
Confira a reportagem na íntegra:
São Paulo IT workers fight for rights
The São Paulo IT workers union Sindpd placed an advert in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper on Tuesday to notify employers that within three days, they might call their members out on strike. IT Decisions has been covering the run-up to this potential strike in detail, speaking to foreign experts such as the British Computer Society, as well as industry analyst Gartner, the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, and even Nasscom – the Indian hi-tech trade association.
There have been mixed views, but to get the complete picture we naturally had to go to the union for their view on exactly why they are taking this action.
Angelica Mari will be reporting on the union views in detail later today as she spent time yesterday interviewing and filming Sindpd union president, Antonio Neto, at his office.
Without revealing too much from the interview, it’s clear that Neto is no firebrand. Over 40% of IT workers (in permanent jobs) in São Paulo belong to his union and he has a deep understanding of the industry he represents.
The union view can be distilled down to a point of fairness. The IT industry is growing fast. It was growing fast even in 2009 when every other business sector was fairly stagnant due to the global economic slowdown. There is every possibility that this growth will continue as there is no shortage of IT projects within Brazil and organizations such as Brasscom are opening the sector up to increased international exports.
So, Neto believes that those working in this industry, and contributing to its success, deserve more than just a pay increase based on the rate of inflation.
If the companies they work for make great gains, then the workers should also make similar gains.
But the IT industry executives think differently – as you might expect. Brazil has a wide range of laws to protect workers that might seem surprising to the average American, or even European. This includes:
The employer always pays for lunch; this is around R$14 or R$15 per day – about $9.
The employer always pays your transport cost for getting to work.
A 40-hour week is now strictly enforced for IT workers, with overtime payable for even a minute of extra time.
Anyone working in London or New York in the technology industry would read even these three bullet-points alone and wonder when those rights ever existed for them.
But, more importantly for employers, is the burden of additional taxes that bring the benefits cost of a worker up to around 100% of their salary. That’s right, if you hire someone on R$4,000 a month, you can expect to actually be paying out $8,000 because of the tax and benefits associated with keeping that person on the payroll.
Employers feel that they are taking all the risks. Workers enjoying all these perks should not also get the benefit of bonuses during great business months combined with the safety of a regular pay check during bad months. That’s not how it works.
It does in India. IT workers there have long been exposed to the variable salary component system where they get a basic salary that is augmented by a variable amount based on how well the company did that month. Many Indian IT workers were shocked to be getting severe pay cuts as the economy nose-dived during 2008 and 2009.
They had assumed that the IT sector can only keep on growing.
So the general feeling amongst the companies is that if they give workers big pay increases now, because times are good, they will never be able to enact pay cuts when times are hard. And there is no mechanism in place – like the Indian variable salary component – that allows companies to reward their employees for great business months, without committing to always paying them that extra amount.
At IT Decisions, we aim to report both sides of this debate. And both sides have a strong argument. The union has a valid point to claim better rewards from companies that are seeing their profits soar, but the employers also have a right to be wary. Brazilian labor laws make it hard to rein in salaries and expenses if these good times change.
One thing that is clear though – the IT industry cannot behave in a vacuum. It must operate within the law and be subjected to the same labor legislation as every other industry. There is no law for fast-growing industries that allows them to side-step inconvenient labor rights.
Both sides of the argument feature honorable and well-intentioned people. Both the union and the IT companies clearly want to see the industry grow in Brazil because that is the best outcome for everyone.
Why can’t they think beyond traditional employment contracts and explore some ideas that would ensure employees are protected, can plan a career, and can share the good times with their employer as well as helping out their employer when times are harder?
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