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Brazil – Use of temporary workers criticised

23 April 2014

Assibge, the National Workers Union for the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) has criticised the excessive use of temporary professionals working at the Institute, reports mundosindical.com.br.

Bianca Schmid, coordinator of the São Paulo branch of the union, said: “Temporary workers should only be used in special situations, but they have already become part of the organisation, without them the IBGE would not be able to function today.”

She explained that contract workers currently comprise almost 50% of the workforce of the IBGE. Data from the institute confirmed that in February 2014 shows that 5,903 employees work on permanent contracts, while 4,454 are on temporary contracts.

According to the union, some temporary workers also end up supervising research, in contradiction to a statement from IBGE that advised that temporary workers were only used to collect research and conduct fieldwork.

“They do the same job as permanent employees, they just don’t get the same benefits. The salary for a temporary worker is a third of a permanent employee and they even end up doing supervisory work,” Ms Schmid added, stressing that the union does not support the automatic recruitment of temporary staff.