Source: Dourados Agora (MS), 14/06/2009

The Human Rights and Participatory Legislation Commission (CDH) holds a public hearing on Tuesday (16) at 9 am to discuss a bill (PLS 176/07) that creates a protection fund for those who work in the cultivation of tobacco. The proposal was presented by Senator Sérgio Zambiasi (PTB-RS).

 

The National Fund for the Protection of Tobacco Workers (FNF), in addition to supporting those working in the sector, aims to diversify economic activities in areas cultivated with tobacco. It also institutes the Contribution for Intervention in the Economic Domain (Cide) on the import, manufacture and sale, in the national territory, of cigars, cigarillos, tobacco cigarettes and the like.

 

The FNF resources will be used for research and development of new cultures by public or private institutions, these without economic ends (7,5%); for the financing of equipment, raw material and other materials needed by the farmer who reduces or stops growing tobacco (15%); the rural tobacco producer and the temporary worker (30%); to the worker in the tobacco industry (7,5%); and for the study and treatment of diseases resulting from tobacco use (40%).

 

Resource management will be carried out jointly by the Ministries of Health; Agriculture, Livestock and Supply; Labor and Employment; and Welfare and Social Assistance.
After the public hearing, the bill will return to CRA, where it was reported by Senator Marisa Serrano (PSDB-MS), and will go to the Economic Affairs Commission (CAE), which will consider it in a final decision - which dispenses with voting in Plenary.

 

The following were invited to the debate:

 

- the Minister of Health, José Gomes Temporão;

- the attorney general of the Republic, Antônio Fernando de Souza;

- the director of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade) Paulo Furquim de Azevedo;

- the Secretary of Labor Relations of the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE), Luiz Antônio de Medeiros Neto;

- Professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) José Antônio Schontag;

- Federal Revenue Secretary, Lina Maria Vieira.

- the president of the Rio Grande do Sul Sinditabaco, Iro Schünke;

- the president of Etco, Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition, André Franco Montoro Filho;

- the president of the Sectorial Chamber of the Tobacco Productive Chain, Romeu Schneider;

- the president of the São Paulo State Tobacco Industry Union, José Henrique Nunes Barreto;

- the president of the National Confederation of Workers in the Food Industries (CNTA), Artur Bueno de Camargo;

- and the president of the São Paulo State Tobacco Industry Workers Union, Francisco Luiz Oliveira.