August 14, 2021

10:08

Cassandra Castro – from Cenarium

BRASILIA (DF) – A public hearing held virtually, this Friday, 13, discussed the concession of Brazilian airports and how will be the situation of the employees of the Brazilian Airport Infrastructure Company (Infraero). According to preliminary information, the workers have been assisted since 2012 by the Special Staffing Adequacy Program, since the company is expected to undergo a general reformulation and perhaps even be extinguished by 2023.

The state company has almost half a century of existence

The state company was created in May 1973 with the mission to implement, manage, operate, and exploit the airport infrastructure industrially and commercially. Since 2011, several airports that make up the Brazilian air network began to go through the concession process that, unlike privatization, is regulated through a contract that provides for the return of goods and services to the State at the end of the contractual period or at any time by public interest.

During the hearing, both representatives of Infraero’s employees as well as the company itself and the National Secretary of Civil Aviation were able to raise questions regarding the use of the employees still working at Infraero and about the fate of the 48-year-old company.

The federal congressman Paulo Ramos (PDT/RJ) was the one who conducted the hearing and said that there is this concern with the “dismantling of Infraero”, which currently has just over 6 thousand workers.

For the Administrative Director of the National Association of Infraero Employees (Anei), Alex Fabiano Viana Costa, the company has failed to meet many commitments made in the past, one of them would be the Sustainability Plan designed to keep the state-owned company “alive”. “The Infraero’s employees are civil servants with relevant professional qualifications, some of whom are about to retire. Imagine Infraero being extinguished and them being fired,” he questioned.

The National Secretary of Civil Aviation Ronei Glanzann refuted the arguments presented by the representatives of the company’s employees and asked them to have confidence in the alternatives presented by the company. Glanzann denied the rumors of mass dismissal. “We have cases of several employees who were assigned to other public agencies such as the CGU, INSS, and the Public Ministry, and we also have a voluntary dismissal plan coordinated so as not to harm the employees”.

Ronei Glanzann also said that it is premature to judge Infraero’s destiny. He affirmed that there are at least two alternatives, such as a fusion with other state-owned companies also related to the airport sector or an adaptation of the company to new service modalities.

In 2019, President Jair Bolsonaro issued a decree creating the public company NAV Brasil Serviços de Navegação Aérea, linked to the Ministry of Defense. The government justified, at the time, that the measure did not represent an increase in state participation in the economy, since the creation of the new entity resulted from the split of the current Infraero.