Public health policy and medical unionism in the context of collapse of Brazilian democracy

Abstract

Abstract Issue This is a report about an editorial initiative to contribute to the debate on the crisis of trade unionism and public health in Brazil. Description of the Problem The Rio de Janeiro Doctors Union (SinMed-RJ), the first trade union of liberal professionals in Brazil, began its activities in 1927 and has completed nine decades. It kept present in the political life, in the process of drafting labor laws, subjected to the brutal intervention of security agencies during the military dictatorship, and in the street struggle for democratizing access to health in the 1980s. It is yet part of the history of the struggles for the re-democratization of the country and the construction of a universal public health policy. Together with The Brazilian Center for Health Studies (Cebes) it fights for the construction and consolidation of the Unified Health System (SUS) and the achievements of the 1988 Citizen Constitution, actions that had a major impact on the trade union and on public health. Results In 2017, the government that emerged from the 2016 judicial-parliamentary coup, made changes to labor legislation, destroying the legal framework for the defense of work and discontinuing the financial of trade unions. In 2019, we were witnessing the struggle of combative and socially based unions for the survival of their entities. The SinMed-RJ promoted debates on the role of the media in deconstructing democracy and the precariousness of medical work, while actively supporting the struggle of doctors in defense of their rights. Lessons Cebes and SinMed-RJ met against the privatization health, an important agenda of debate and action. From 2019, there had been a growing increase in measures to deconstruct public policies and labor protection, breaking the social legitimacy of state institutions, retracting the democratic space, deepening inequality and unemployment. This agenda is urgent to be widely debated for the whole society of a country in crisis. Key messages The major impact of this work was to include the public health challenges of Brazil in the agenda of the trade union, and to fight to rescue the democracy in Brazil. The major impact was to work with other institution on health studies and publish a special number of a free publication in honor of nine decades of the first union of liberal professional in Brazil.