The new floor for nursing professionals is generating debates in the Piauí region. Some municipalities proposed using oil royalties to fund the new payment of amounts.

Municipalities in Piauí seek to use royalties from oil to finance the new nursing salary floor in Brazil, composed of nurses, technicians and assistants. With more than 2,8 million professionals in the country, the initiative aims to guarantee payment not only to public servants, but also to outsourced and precarious contractors. Despite being approved a year ago, the payment of the floor is still a complex and uncertain issue in the region.

Oil royalties can pay for the nursing floor in Piauí

In the quest to ensure payment of the new salary floor approved by Congress, the municipalities of Piauí are exploring an innovative alternative: directing resources from oil royalties to guarantee salaries in the new payment range.

Currently in Brazil, an army of more than 2,8 million nursing professionals works daily, consisting of 693,4 nurses, 450 nursing assistants, 1,66 million nursing technicians and about 60 midwives .

The president of the Piauiense Association of Municipalities (APPM), Toninho de Caridade, suggests that this financial approach would not only include nurses and health professionals who are public servants, but would also cover outsourced workers and those with precarious contracts.

In this way, the payment of the salary floor already approved by Congress would become something concrete in the lives of these professionals.

This is still a much-debated issue in the health sector, given that, although the new base salary for nurses has completed one year since its approval last Friday, the effective payment has not yet materialized.

As established by law, nurses hired under the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT) regime should receive a minimum wage of R$ 4.750.

Nursing technicians, in turn, should receive at least 70% of this amount (R$ 3.325), while nursing assistants and midwives would receive 50% (R$ 2.375).

This salary floor is valid for both the public and private sectors. The Ministry of Health aims to implement the national nursing floor on the payroll by this month of August.

In this way, directing oil royalties in Piauí to pay the amounts could be a viable alternative.

Payment of the new salary floor for nursing professionals still faces obstacles

In June of this year, the STF validated the constitutionality of the minimum wage, but imposed some restrictions on its application.

One of these restrictions includes the requirement for collective bargaining within 60 days for professionals hired under the CLT regime.

This decision has generated controversy, as some professionals argue that standards from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) recommend a 30-hour working day, linking remuneration to a workload of 44 hours per week.

In addition, the National Congress also expressed disagreement with the decision of the STF.

Speaking on the subject, Toninho de Caridade, president of APPM, shared some relevant points about the approach adopted by the municipalities of Piauí to acquire resources from oil royalties.

“I defend a thesis with the federal bench of Piauí that the division of royalties comes to fully comply with the nursing floor. This is important for all of us, it would not burden the union, it is an existing resource”, reinforced the representative.

Now, the municipalities of Piauí continue to fight for a concrete decision by the Federal Government regarding the payment of the new wage floor.