A-Infos (en) Brazil, OSL: Against the Administrative Reform of Precariousness: Only direct action and self-organization can defeat the State and capital! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A new "Administrative Reform" is advancing in the Chamber of Deputies, 
this time orchestrated in a collusion between the Lula-Alckmin 
government, the Centrão (center-right bloc), and the far-right. The 
Administrative Reform, filed as Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) 
No. 38/2025, is a strong attack by the dominant classes disguised as 
modernization. It represents the consolidation of a neoliberal project 
that has been continuously built by various governments of all political 
persuasions and, to some extent, at the state and municipal levels (as 
exemplified by the recent attacks on education in São Paulo), aiming to 
strangle the rights of the working class, further precariousize our 
lives, and hand over what remains of public services to private 
initiative, transforming them into commodities and subjecting them to 
the logic of profit. The effect of this is the cutting of rights, the 
freezing of social investments, and a worsening of public service 
provision, on which the vast majority of the Brazilian working 
population depends.

Repackaging the attacks of PEC 32 from the Bolsonaro era, the current 
government proves that the management of the capitalist state, whatever 
its guise, has a single project: to deepen exploitation and commodify 
every aspect of our lives. This is not a project of efficiency or of 
combating privileges, but of demolishing public policies. Its essence is 
to destroy stable employment and weaken public services, expand 
precarious outsourcing and temporary contracts, implement punitive 
performance evaluations - which can lead to dismissals without due 
process - and dismantle career plans, with wage freezes, reductions in 
starting salaries, and the elimination of progression based on length of 
service, all to privatize what remains - from health and education to 
social assistance. In practice, this attack on the stability of civil 
servants and, therefore, on their professional autonomy, facilitates the 
association of the work performed by the professional with the political 
preferences of their superiors, something already observed in contract 
and commissioned positions.

The new administrative reform proposal maintains the essential attacks 
of the neoliberal agenda, even with superficial adjustments. While 
dismantling the services that sustain the lives of the majority, the 
privileged castes - of the Judiciary, the Armed Forces, and the high 
command - remain untouched in their privileges. The so-called 
"modernization" serves, in reality, to concentrate power at the top to 
the detriment of the people. This is the perfect portrait of the 
bourgeois state: the minimum for the working class, maximum power and 
perks for the already privileged.

Anchored in the discourse of fiscal responsibility, the reform serves 
the interests of the financial sector and employers' associations, 
imposing a spending cap that will also affect state and municipal civil 
servants, retirees, and the population as a whole. Just as PEC 32 was 
defeated by popular mobilization, it is fundamental to build unity 
between public servants and social movements to block this project, 
whose sole objective is to transform rights into profit and deepen the 
dismantling of social rights.

The attacks are clear and should mobilize the population to defeat the PEC:

Creation of a new Spending Cap, limiting the growth of investments in 
health, education, and housing;

Freezing and flattening of salaries, with the end of progression based 
on length of service;

End of historical rights such as five-year increments, sixth-part 
bonuses, and hazard pay;

Total precarization, with the expansion of outsourcing and temporary 
contracts, creating a reserve army of precarious workers to replace 
tenured civil servants;

Attack on job security through meritocratic and productivist 
evaluations, tools of moral harassment that facilitate dismissals and 
undermine the right to strike and union organization;

Privileges maintained for the upper echelons of the State, such as 
judges and the military, revealing the classist and hypocritical nature 
of the reform;
Substantial worsening of service in the public sector, directly 
affecting users, that is, the entire working population.
The electoral and negotiation strategy: The decisive brake on the struggles

Faced with this attack, we cannot place any trust in the bureaucracies 
of the large trade union centers that compromise, and depending on the 
case, are part of this same power. From what we have seen so far, the 
union bureaucracies and institutional left-wing parties such as the PT 
and PSOL are stalling, aiming only for electoral gains and internal 
negotiation within parliament. These same sectors directly attack the 
public service, through measures such as the application of performance 
evaluation in the INSS (National Institute of Social Security), the 
attempted privatization of the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography 
and Statistics), and the direct attack against the movement of students 
and workers of federal universities last year, who demanded the transfer 
of funds that were drastically reduced.

These sectors will not engage in the necessary struggle to definitively 
stop this reform. On the contrary, as has been the case in recent years, 
they will be an obstacle that works towards demobilization.

Dissatisfaction with the precariousness and deterioration of public 
services is evident. In recent years, many strikes by public servants 
and social movements demanding free and quality public services have 
been some of the spearheads in the class struggle. It is necessary to 
break the isolation of these episodes and build a unified struggle of 
the working class in defense of public services. Faced with this 
scenario, we cannot fall into the trap of corporatism. From the 
perspective of public service workers, the struggle cannot be to defend 
the jobs and working conditions of only one specific sector, isolating 
itself from the rest of the working class that suffers from 
precariousness in the private sector and from dilapidated public services.

It is necessary to work to make it clear that the struggle for quality 
public service and quality for all people is not opposed to the defense 
of the working conditions of public servants. They complement each other 
and are part of the same struggle. For a grassroots struggle strategy

The mobilization called for October 29th in Brasília is an important 
step, but it cannot be the only one. We must pressure politicians and 
the large union bureaucracy to stop this veritable destruction of public 
services and the even deeper precarization of life and rights, 
especially for the poorest. Popular power does not reside in 
institutional parties, but in direct action and self-organization from 
workplaces and neighborhoods.

In our actions, we advocate:

Building autonomous grassroots committees: In all workplaces and 
territories, we must promote independent grassroots committees that 
discuss and decide the course of the struggle. These committees should 
articulate the demands of public servants and outsourced public service 
workers with the demands of oppressed classes for health, education, 
transportation, social assistance, etc.;

Radicalize the mobilization: Boost the national strikes on October 28th 
and 29th, not as a mere symbolic protest, but as a rehearsal of popular 
power that initiates a calendar of struggles;

Unify the struggles: Take the fight against the Administrative Reform 
out of cabinet meetings. It is necessary to dialogue with the 
population, to show that this attack worsens the education of their 
children, the health of their family and social assistance. We must 
unite this struggle with other urgent issues, such as the right to housing;

Prepare a general strike of public servants: The only force capable of 
defeating this project is a massive, organized and combative general 
strike of all public employees. But this strike must be built from the 
bottom up, controlled by the grassroots, and have as its horizon not 
only defeating the reform, but advancing in the conquest of spaces for 
self-management.

The Administrative Reform is yet another chapter in the war of capital 
against the people. Our response cannot be to gamble on parliamentary 
decisions. It must be one of organization, independent mobilization and 
direct struggle!

NO TO ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM OF CAPITAL!

FOR SELF-MANAGEMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICES UNDER WORKERS' CONTROL!

OUR STRUGGLE IS IN THE STREETS AND FROM THE GRASSROOTS!

Libertarian Socialist Organization
October 2025

https://socialismolibertario.net/2025/10/29/contra-a-reforma-administrativa/
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