Brazil: the CCJ analyses authorisation for gambling and union rights

The bill (PL) 2.234/2022, from the Chamber of Deputies, authorises the operation of casinos and bingos, legalises gambling and allows betting on horse races. The matter was on the CCJ's agenda in April, but the vote was postponed so that the issue could be discussed at a public hearing.

The proposal's rapporteur, Senator Irajá (PSD-TO), even read out his favourable vote at the meeting, and the president of the CCJ, Senator Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), authorised the start of the project's discussion, but ended up announcing an agreement to postpone the deliberation.

In his vote, Senator Irajá presented only one amendment to the original text approved by the deputies, and rejected four presented in the CCJ. One of them, by Senator Carlos Viana, sought to exclude casinos and gambling from the regulations.

The initiative authorises the installation of casinos in tourist centres or integrated leisure complexes, such as high standard hotels with at least 100 rooms, restaurants, bars and venues for meetings and cultural events. The text provides for the installation of a casino in each state and in the Federal District. Exceptions are made only for the states of São Paulo (three casinos), Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Amazonas and Pará (up to two each).

If approved, the matter will go to the Plenary for a vote.

Assistance contribution

Senators will also analyse the bill (PL 2.830/2019) that facilitates the right of workers to refuse to pay assistance contributions to trade unions. The proposal, by Senator Styvenson Valentim (Podemos-RN), which also reduces the deadline for enforcing labour debt, received a favourable vote from the rapporteur, Senator Rogério Marinho (PL-RN).

The original text only reduced the deadline for labour debts resulting from a final and unappealable court decision to be protested from 45 to 15 days, adopting the same deadline already used for civil debts. Rogério Marinho changed this deadline to 35 days and included in the text, through amendments, the regulation of workers' right to oppose assistance contributions to trade unions.

The labour reform approved in 2017 extinguished the so-called union tax, whereby all workers were obliged to pay one day's wages to the union of their category, even if they were not members. Last year, however, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) authorised trade unions to charge an assistance contribution even from non-member workers, when authorised by collective agreement or convention and as long as they guarantee workers the right to object, i.e. to refuse to pay.

However, the rapporteur argues in his vote that trade unions have created difficulties for workers to object to the assistance contribution by setting short deadlines and inopportune opening hours, demanding personal attendance, putting pressure on those interested and imposing fees. Opposition to payment, according to the report, will be made simpler and can even be done by email or WhatsApp.

The matter will be analysed on a terminative basis and if it is approved, it will go to the Chamber of Deputies for analysis as long as there is no request for a plenary vote.

Other projects 

Also on the CCJ's agenda is PL 3.169/2023, by Senator Astronaut Marcos Pontes (PL-SP), which excludes the crime of housebreaking by a health agent who enters an abandoned property to promote health control actions and the proposal, by Senator Veneziano Vital do Rego (MDB-PB), which includes municipal guards and traffic agents in public security careers (PEC 37/2022). Senators may also vote on PL 4.626/2020, from the Chamber of Deputies, which toughens the penalties for crimes of ill-treatment and abandonment of incapacitated persons and exposure of elderly people to danger to their health and physical or psychological integrity, as well as PL 3.944/2019, from the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), which, among other measures, establishes psychological assistance in the prison system. 

Agência Senado