P was just offered a job at a law firm for which she had previously interviewed. A 12-hour shift as PA from 11 to 11 for a monthly salary of 3000 reais (£1185). Pre-tax. Leaving aside childcare headaches, this is a top law firm in the centre of Sao Paulo - specialising in international mergers and acquisitions - whose partners and directors will be on megabucks comparable with London or New York (certainly with this over-strong Real). What kind of bad joke is that ? The equivalent PA role in the UK comes at a much higher price (see ad below), especially for after-hours work. But in old-school hierarchical Brazil, a mere "secretary", like all the other little people, is supposed to be grateful for any scraps thrown from the table. This is the same "fun" and "sexy" Brazil of which tourists are so enamoured.
Update: ... And this just in: "Brazilian law firms surge on M&A boom"
Update 2: Just by way of comparison, here is a randomly chosen legal PA ad for a company in London:
salary : £30,000 to £35,000 per year
location : City of London
job term : Permanent/Full-time
benefits : excellent benefits
well the media job I went for today was for a salary of 6000 NIS gross a month. That's 1080 pounds. So it's not just Brazil and it's not just PAs...
ReplyDeleteWhat were the hours ?
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of salaries are the senior people on ? I agree that there are crap-paying jobs everywhere, especially right now, but my point is that, relatively speaking, a rich law firm should not be offering this derisory salary. If it were a struggling law firm, doing loads of social campaigning pro bono work, then that would be different.
ReplyDeleteI agree this is exploitation. Consider that justice is always the basis of any modernday society, this is doubly disgraceful for a "law firm"
ReplyDeleteGood point, prompting a new title to this blog post ! You are right that this will not be a modern society until justice stands on more solid foundations. For too many people it's a case of "justice delayed is justice denied". So why would we expect rich lawyers to act with any higher morality ?
ReplyDeleteI can also mention that I was rejected at the same company because I could not make a final interview with a partner at the date he was free (I was ill), and after wait almost 2 weeks answer for a vacancy that was "URGENT" , the recruiter came to me and said that I was rejected because the partner was "disappointed" that I could not make the interview when he wanted even if I had explained i was ill.
ReplyDeleteBut this is of course what happened to me and doesnt represent everyone's experience.
Pri
the job in question was 30 hours a week, admittedly not fulltime. But still... considering it's my field of experience exactly and I have over 10 years experience in it... and my rent is 5000 NIS before bills... that's why people are camping out on Rothschild at the moment. You can't live on Israeli salaries unless you're in Hitech.
ReplyDeleteI agree. And let's hope this new cottage cheese etc movement really gets somewhere. There is no sign if any similar movent in Brazil. They've got far more important things to demonstrate about, such as liberalizing drug laws.
ReplyDelete