Thousands of professors at our public universities are distressed. They don't want to retire, but they feel compelled to do so because of the pension reform being discussed. They enjoy their work and do it with enormous dedication, routinely exceeding their working hours required by law. Many of these teachers have long surpassed their service time for retirement. As knowledge has the characteristic of being cumulative, these people are an invaluable asset for the development of Brazil.
At Unicamp alone, there are 421 teachers who could retire immediately, but did not do so. Another 127 retired professors continue to serve the university, as volunteer collaborating professors, without receiving any remuneration other than their retirement. Those who can retire, but don't want to, are distressed because they are being compelled to do so. Those who still cannot are watching helplessly the perverse course of discussions about reform.
These professors chose to work in one of the most important Brazilian public universities; now they find themselves punished for the choice they made, seeing the rights that were promised to them disregarded at the time, in exchange for a life of lower earnings than those they could obtain in private institutions, often with better remuneration, but with less capacity for academic achievement. The reform proposed by the Executive did not even address this basic concern in a civilized society: decent and minimally fair transition rules.
Given this situation, it is with the most absolute perplexity that we see the federal Executive include these dedicated teachers among those responsible for possible problems related to the ability to fulfill Social Security commitments. Official propaganda, when comparing its reform proposal to important advances that have occurred in our history, such as the abolition of slavery, unfairly suggests that professors at public universities are causing evils as serious as those that led to those movements.
Because professors at public universities are not the cause of the problem because they aspire to maintain the social security right to full retirement equivalent to their last salary. This right was guaranteed to them by law. In the face of it, they gave up better salaries to dedicate themselves to necessary and strategic work for the country. These honorable citizens, who deserve respect and recognition, are faced with a proposal that undermines the expectations in which they trusted.
With the enormous contribution of professors at our public universities, today we have an enviable academic infrastructure. We have the ability to think and find solutions to many of the national problems thanks to Brazilians who are well trained in engineering, biology, physics, mathematics, sociology and many other areas of knowledge. Technological giants such as Embrapa, Embraer, Petrobras are the result of our public universities.
Social Security aims to guarantee an important right. By ensuring this right to its citizens, it is the nation as a whole that benefits. Pension reform can only be justified by the objective of improving its functioning, in order to provide a dignified retirement. It may be necessary to reform Social Security in Brazil - this still needs to be demonstrated. Studies by Ipea show that the tendency for benefits to grow beyond sustainability exists in the general pension system (INSS), and not in the public servant pension system (“Textos para Discussão”, nº 690, 12/1999). However, the reform on the agenda affects public servants. Why? For what?
In Congress, it is necessary to think about the effects that the proposal will have on the future of public service. In particular, we need to think about the people who have been making our public universities good. Our teachers deserve to have their rights and expectations respected. If the government's proposal is approved, the new law will have effects that will compromise the scientific and technological advancement that the country has experienced in recent years: the discouragement of new and talented teachers entering public teaching and research institutions, which will be followed by a wave of retirements, including early ones, caused by the absence of fair transition devices that guarantee entitlement to time already worked, by the drastic reduction expected in the value of retirement and by the absence of reassuring regulation of supplementary retirement.
In the contemporary world, the development of nations is dependent on knowledge and education. In the very short term, a pension reform aimed at generating cash may even alleviate State expenses, but in the medium and long term, its effects, especially on public universities, will bring irrecoverable losses to the country's socioeconomic development.
Article published in the June 20 edition
from the newspaper Folha de S. Paul.
Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz He is rector of Unicamp.
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