The Government of Rio Grande do Norte will not give any type of salary adjustment or restoration to civil servants in 2024, according to a forecast by the Secretary of State for Administration, Pedro Lopes. The information was confirmed at a press conference this Tuesday (23). The information coincides with the moment when civil police and health workers mobilize strikes and strikes demanding salary updates. According to Lopes, salary adjustments continue to be negotiated with the categories, but with adjustments only in 2025 and if ICMS collection behaves at levels similar to when the modal rate was 20%. In addition to this, the Government does not rule out possible legal action for the ongoing strikes.
“To start dialogues with the categories in 2024 we needed to maintain the modal rate at 20%. The Government reactivated this discussion in ALRN and when we began to realize the difficulties in maintaining this, we called the union movement in November and announced that if we eventually did not approve the law, it would be difficult to start salary policies in 2024. We started to lose revenue from February. The ICMS for March is practically the same as March last year. The Government will have a loss in revenue and in view of this we called the unions and announced that we would not be able to recover this year”, he said.
The Government’s basic proposal for the categories, according to Lopes, is to apply the 2022 inflation in 2025 and divide the 2023 inflation into April 2025 and April 2026. This week, the Government signed a salary recovery agreement for police officers and firefighters military, with negotiations still open with the Civil Police, Health and employees of the Direct and Indirect administration. With the military, the agreement was 8%.
The government’s assessment is that, once the negotiations are closed, the increase in the number of employees per month will reach R$76 million. The expectation is still to close an agreement with Health this week, while the Civil Police remains open. The education category has already had an adjustment discussed and implemented this year.
“Health presented a counterproposal that was well within the State’s possibilities. We said we will comply, the only point is the schedule, the implementation,” he said.
Regarding judicializations, secretary Pedro Lopes said that the strike movement is a “right” of civil servants, but that the State does not rule out legal action aimed at guaranteeing services for the population.
“The government has a duty to maintain public services. Evidently, judicialization cannot be ruled out, especially because to keep the services running, if we have to judicialize it, we will do it. But we are investing in dialogue,” she explained.
The MPRN filed, this Tuesday (23), with an ordinary civil action asking for the immediate end of the strike by Civil Police and Public Security Secretariat (Sesed) employees. The body also calls for the urgent reestablishment of judicial police services in full throughout the State.
