ICMBio employees joined the strike initiated by Ibama on Thursday (4 January); category says that government weakens environmental career
More than 600 employees from ICMBio (Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation) joined, on Thursday (4.Jan.2024), the strike by environmental employees who are putting pressure on the president's government Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) for a salary increase. There are 1,400 Ibama (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) workers who have been on strike since January 2nd.
The employees filed a letter to the federal government on Wednesday (Jan. 3) asking for the resumption of negotiations between the MGI (Ministry of Management and Innovation) and Ascema (National Association of Environmental Specialist Career Servers) for a new career plan for the category. Here's the complete of the document (PDF—268kB).
During the strike, workers must focus exclusively on internal bureaucratic activities. According to the association that represents the sector, work in the field, including supervision, surveys and research, will be suspended until the government presents a response to the claims.
Starting next week, the category will hold assemblies in the States to decide locally on other activities to be added to the strike movement. Officials from the SFB (Brazilian Forestry Service) and the Ministry of the Environment are also evaluating adherence to the strike.
“It is a direct response to the lack of action and effective support for servers and the critical missions we perform. This measure is nothing more than the expression of the fight for the appreciation and respect of the service and public servants in the environmental area”, says an excerpt from the letter.
“This suspension of external activities will certainly have significant impacts on the conservation of biodiversity and the preservation of the environment. We attribute this to the 10 years of total abandonment of the public service career that suffered the most harassment and persecution during the previous government and which has not yet been properly welcomed and valued by the current”, he adds.
A “perspective of disloyalty” from the Lula government to employees in the environmental sector was also present in a note of repudiation from Asibama (Association of Environmental Specialist Career Servers), published on December 28, shortly before the start of the strike. The employees declared that they were “appalled” It is “tired” for not receiving feedback from the government on requests for improvements in working conditions.
“The Lula/PT government, especially the Ministry of Management and Innovation/MGI, headed by minister Esther Dweck, is currently mainly responsible for the increase in abandonment, emptying and weakening of the environmental career”, says an excerpt from the note.
To the Power360, the Ministry of the Environment stated that its priority is to restructure environmental careers. “The MMA is in dialogue with the MGI to present a schedule of the next stages of negotiation with civil servants from the ministry, Ibama, ICMBio and SFB”
The newspaper contacted the MGI, but did not receive a response until the completion of this text. The space remains open.
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