In May 12, the National Executive of the Brazilian Workers' Party (PT) voted by 13 votes to 7 to send to an Ethics Commission the cases of three elected representatives from the left of the party.
They are Senator Heloisa Helena (of the Socialist Democracy tendency, DS, which organizes Fourth International supporters in the PT) and two members of the Brazilian lower house, Joao Batista Baba (of the Socialist Workers Current, CST), and Luciana Genro (of the Movement of the Socialist Left, MES, which separated from the CST about a year ago). The three are accused of publicly opposing the government's proposed pension reforms, which involve serious cutbacks in Brazil's comparatively favourable public sector pension provisions. The Lula government claims these are needed to free up resources for its anti-poverty campaigns.
The left argues that you can not address poverty by attacking another set of workers' rights, and that the real reason for the pension reforms is that these are part of last year's unpublished deal with the IMF which the new government has promised to honour. They argue that far from combating poverty, any resources "freed up" will go to pay Brazil's foreign creditors. Heloisa in particular is accused of encouraging public sector unions to take legal action against government TV propaganda promoting the reforms, which insults public sector workers as greedy for wanting to protect their pensions.
She denies any involvement in legal action; she merely said she thought the unions had the right to take such action if they wished. It's worth pointing out that the government has no intention of curbing the mega-pensions enjoyed by many of the Brazilian elite, including the US$750,000 a year pension being paid to the PTnominated head of the Central Bank, Henrique Meirelles, by his old employers, Bank Boston.
ndeed it was Heloisa's refusal to
vote to approve this nomination in
the Senate back in December which began her run-in with the PT leaders.
The leadership offered the three rebels a deal. If they agreed to vote for the majority position, there would be no disciplinary proceedings. The three refused. The Ethics Commission was then given between 30 and 60 days to come back with a report, which would go to the PT's full leadership body, the National Directorate, for a final decision on expulsions or other action. A majority of PT senators agreed to