February 12, 2022

11:02

Malu Dacio – from Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The mayor of Manaquiri (AM) and president of the Amazon Association of Municipalities (AAM), Jair Souto, and the director of the Union of Education Workers of the State of Amazonas (Sinteam), Cleber Ferreira, differed opinions about the new salary floor for teachers.

On the last day 4, President Jair Messias Bolsonaro (PL), along with Milton Ribeiro, Minister of Education, signed the ordinance No. 67/2022, which establishes the new salary floor for basic education teachers in state and municipal public networks.

The salary floor increased from R$2,886.24 to R$3,845.63. The number represents a 33.24% increase. The president of AAM, Jair Souto, remembers that the limit of 60% spending on staff for each municipality. “What law are we going to comply with? The law of spending limit with personnel or the law that determines the payment? “, he questioned.

Jair questioned the need for the increase in salaries in several areas of performance. “Facing everything we are living now, honestly, a 33% salary increase for mayor, councilman, president of the republic, teacher and health professional […] is this really what we need to do to have quality of life?”, asked Souto.

The mayor also says that it is necessary to evaluate well and observe what is necessary and implement what he called the few resources that the city halls have: “We need to debate more, democratize the discussion more. Bringing the truth so that Brazil is really served as it should be,” defended Jair.

Mayors also point out possible legal flaws

The National Front of Mayors (FNP) points out a possible legal uncertainty in the ordinance. The FNP asks for a specific law, as determined by the art. 212-A, XII of the Constitution, and not what it calls the use of an administrative act to set the criteria for the readjustment of the teaching floor.

The mayor of Belém-PA, Edmilson Rodrigues, said that the rulers want to value the teaching profession, to pay better salaries to the teachers, but he considers that “the government has to create the conditions and stop being irresponsible of wanting to define politically without the financial counterpart that is its responsibility”.

“A very big risk we are running is this issue of having an ordinance that has no legal backing, and from then on this can become a precedent and we will always be complying with MEC decisions without legal backing,” comments the mayor of Lauro de Freitas/BA, Moema Gramacho, vice president of Gender Policies. 

What the teachers say

The director of the Union of Education Workers of the State of Amazonas (Sinteam), Cleber Ferreira, said that the city halls can not claim the lack of resources in relation to this issue of the floor because this resource is linked to the increase in the fund for development and appreciation of professionals – Fundeb.

The “Piso do Magistério” is a law and must be complied with. The mayors need to ask the federal government for a supplement to the Fundeb in order to pay the minimum amount to the teachers, if they say they can’t afford it. But they have to prove that they can’t pay, because there are many mayors who say that they can’t pay the minimum wage when, in fact, they use the money from Fundeb for other purposes.

“This is exactly what it is for. So, the floor is established from the time of the Fundeb. At the moment that the Fundeb increases, the floor also increases, “said Cléber.

Cléber explains that it is necessary to separate the floor from the readjustment, and that they are different. He explains that the National Salary Floor for Teachers was established in 2008 by Law 11.738. The floor defines the minimum that a teacher should earn based on a 40h work week.

And in this law, article 5 determines that the floor is readjusted taking into account the value per pupil per year of the Fundeb. So, if the Fundeb increased 33%, the floor increases 33%, according to the director of the union. “If we earned less than R$ 3.845, the government and the municipality should adjust the salary to guarantee the minimum, but we receive more than the minimum wage. Does the salary have to decrease? Of course not, the minimum wage is the minimum to be paid”, declared Cléber.

As for the readjustment issues, he remembers that the teaching profession has its career instituted by the Career Plan, where there is a base date. “By law, every year we should have our salary readjusted by the inflation index – which can be either the IPCA or the INPC. The index is around 9% to 11% a year, so the governments are obliged by law to give the adjustment”, says the director.