The Senate on Wednesday approved a government-proposed bill that includes salary increases and career path changes for several federal government employees, including those of the Federal Police, Federal Highway Police, the National Mining Agency (ANM) and the Agency for Indigenous Peoples (Funai).
The House of Representatives has already passed the bill, which will now be submitted to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to be signed into law.
The federal government estimates the bill will cost the government 316 million reais ($60 million) in extra costs this year and another 2.5 billion reais ($480 million) in 2026, when the changes are fully implemented.
Senator Jack Wagner, Senate whip for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government and the bill's rapporteur, said the law would “contribute to making government jobs more attractive and expanding the federal government's ability to attract and retain top talent.”
Prison police officers will receive the largest pay raises, with the top officers receiving raises of up to 77 percent. Federal police officers will receive a 27 percent raise, a change that was not in Lula's original bill but was included by lawmakers.
Federal government employees have been striking across different occupations or launching Operation Go Slow as a way to pressure the government for higher salaries. In 2020 and 2021, public sector strikes accounted for roughly one-third of all strikes in Brazil. Brazil Daily Newsletter The figures were released on February 20. This represents roughly 60% of all strikes in the country for 2022 and the first half of 2023 (data for the whole of last year has not yet been released).
Workers at the federal environmental agencies Ibama and ICMBio have been on strike since the beginning of the year. The National Association of Environmental Public Employees (Ascema) said on Wednesday that areas of environmental degradation in the Amazon had expanded 17 times in the first four months of the year compared to the same period in 2023. The bill voted on today does not include careers in environmental agencies.
