Mercadante announces creation of forum with BNDES and workers

The president of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), Aloizio Mercadante, met this Friday (12th), in Rio de Janeiro, with representatives of the trade union centrals that make up the Deliberative Council of the Worker Support Fund ( codefat). At the meeting, Mercadante announced the creation of the Permanent BNDES-Labour Forum, with the purpose of opening a channel for dialogue on the category’s agenda. “We must turn this meeting into a permanent forum. Bimonthly meetings to align the diagnosis and so that the BNDES is more open, both to specific agendas and to the discussion of the more general agenda, of the BNDES and of the country”, proposed the bank’s president. The idea is that the first meeting of the Forum, to be coordinated by the Socio-environmental director of the BNDES, Tereza Campello, can bring together entities linked to the world of work and production, such as the International Labor Organization (ILO), the Financier of Studies and Projects (Finep), the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Development, Industry and Commerce (MDIC) and other development banks. Tereza clarified that the Bank has already started a debate with the International Labor Organization (ILO) to seek ways to enable preventive actions that guarantee decent working conditions in jobs associated with BNDES credit. It was also agreed, during the meeting, that among the seminars that are being promoted by the BNDES Strategic Studies Commission, one of them will address the world of work, with the participation of representatives of the centers that represent the workers. The Worker Support Fund (FAT) is the BNDES’ main source of funding. Currently, more than 50% of the funding [captação de recursos financeiros para aplicação em um investimento] from the bank is made up of transfers from the Fund. Its deliberative council – made up of representatives of workers, employers and the government – ​​is responsible, among other things, for drawing up guidelines for allocating resources and monitoring their social impact. Sociologist Clemente Ganz Lúcio, technical advisor to the trade union centrals, presented the “working class agenda”. The document brings together the agenda for the class, “with 63 proposals whose axis is the resumption of sustainable socio-environmental growth”, he explained. “We need to find a way to resume development, economic growth and the generation of quality jobs, and the BNDES is the main instrument we have for that”, evaluated the president of Força Sindical, Miguel Torres. For Santos Neto, from the Central dos Trabalhadores e Trabalhadores do Brasil (CTB), the effect of the sequence of layoffs by big techs abroad is now being felt in Brazil. “The pandemic disrupted work relationships”.

Agência Brasil