With a speech focused on Caixa Econômica Federal workers, Rita Serrano took office as the new president of the bank. In a ceremony held this afternoon (12), Rita defended the humanization of labor relations. “The management by fear at Caixa is over”, she said, before an audience full of executives and employees of the bank, who applauded her for a long time after the statement.
She takes over Caixa after a period of harassment complaints sexual and moral, during the last government. Rita’s resume, with 33 years at the bank and employee representative on the company’s Board of Directors, was fundamental for President Lula, present at the event, choosing her name.
“You were chosen because you have a story, because many people referred to you. And I just hope that you dedicate to Caixa what you dedicated as an employee, as a union, political and social activist”, said Lula.
In her speech, the president of Caixa also defended the state nature of the bank. She recalled the threats of privatization suffered in the last government and the social importance of the institution during the pandemic. Emergency aid was paid by Caixa at the time for the unassisted population during social isolation. Rita stated that if the bank resisted the onslaught of the last government’s economic team, it was “because the employees waved the banner of defense of the public bank in the face of privatization initiatives”.
Caixa’s new president also defended the promotion of the population’s banking inclusion, investment in cultural projects and the pursuit of business profitability, even if there is no automatic alignment with the logic of the financial market. According to her, public banks should pay attention to the needs of the population.
In more than three decades at the institution, Rita Serrano has performed several functions and was, between 2006 and 2012, president of the Union of Bank Employees of ABC Paulista. She is also one of the leaders of the movement to defend public companies.
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My home, my life
Speaking on the spur of the moment, Lula praised Caixa’s social work and specifically mentioned the bank’s performance in the Minha Casa, Minha Vida housing program, aimed at low-income families, with easy financing conditions. The president stated that he should deliver new houses later this month. According to him, these are works stopped after the end of the Dilma Rousseff government, in 2016, and resumed now.
“This month we will have many things to inaugurate in this country. We have houses to inaugurate that started in the Dilma government and were stopped afterwards. We started, we left thinking that others were going to do it, they didn’t”.
