Agência Brasil

Brasília - In an official note issued yesterday (8), the Workers' Central Union (CUT), the country's largest labor central, affirms that the cut determined by the Monetary Policy Committee (COPOM) of the Central Bank, lowering the annualized benchmark interest rate (Selic) to 16.5%, "is too small, totally inadequate."

According to the note, "the economic team still retains the false and obsessive notion that inflation is the only evil threatening human existence." The CUT argues that "at some point it is preferable for a country to adopt more flexible inflation targets and permit faster growth." The union goes on to insist "that the National Monetary Council be opened to the participation of the productive sector, including workers, and that the government embrace growth and job creation targets with the same zeal presently reserved for the inflation target."

For Paulo Pereira da Silva, president of the Union Force, another important labor central, the reduction in the Selic "is insignificant for the growth of the economy." In a note he declares that "a change is needed in economic policy, which favors financial capital at the expense of production and the creation of new jobs." He goes on to warn that "the modest reduction is already compromising the cause of workers whose salaries are readjusted in the first half of the year."

Translation: David Silberstein