Disgruntled Central Bank workers stage slowdown

Unions protest the Central Bank-set benchmark interest rates. Photo: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom/ABr

Central Bank employees in Brazil plan to intensify go-slow actions from this Monday, amid dissatisfaction with the federal government’s failure to attend to their demands regarding the restructuring of their career progression.

The national union of Central Bank employees (Sinal) criticized the government’s plan to launch a recruitment round for the institution before making non-salary-related modifications to its workers’ career path. Sinal is notably demanding that the post of technician require a higher education degree and that the post of analyst be renamed auditor.

Sinal president Fábio Faiad said in a statement that the union “understands that carrying out a recruitment exam is inopportune at this time and would be a way of making the category’s demands unfeasible.

“In the current scenario of the deterioration of the [Central Bank] and demotivation [of the workforce], a recruitment round would attract candidates with second-rate education or simply interested in using the Central Bank as a springboard for other roles with a higher salary.”

Public sector workers in Brazil are recruited via a competitive entrance exam. In a bid to fill vacant posts and bolster government work, the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration has launched recruitment rounds for more than 5,600 positions this year so far, across multiple government departments including the Foreign Ministry, the Environment Ministry, the Indigenous Peoples Foundation (Funai) and the Fiocruz public health institute, to name but a few.

Management Minister Esther Werneck has reportedly mooted a recruitment round in the Central Bank. It has been ten years since the financial authority last recruited new employees via the federal entrance exam.

Central Bank workers had begun a slowdown in their operations at the start of July, and now simply plan to intensify these actions. “Events, delays and interruptions in various other Central Bank services may become increasingly frequent and spread even to departments which haven’t yet been affected,” the Sinal statement reads. The work of the bank’s innovation lab is one of the areas already affected by this industrial action.

Last year, a three-month strike by Central Bank workers demanding a 26 percent salary adjustment disrupted the release of key economic indicators. The bank’s employees were unsuccessful in twisting the arm of the Jair Bolsonaro government, however.

Union representatives are seeking a dialogue with Finance Minister Fernando Haddad to resolve the current deadlock.