BRAZIL: Holding the Line

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To hold the line against rampaging inflation, Brazil's new President João Café Filho is firmly and conscientiously risking his personal popularity. Earlier this month he vetoed a pay rise for 15,000 doctors who work for the federal government or institutes it sponsors. Last week, as a result, Brazil's doctors threatened a nationwide sitdown strike.

Most of the doctors make such small salaries from government hospitals and the laborers' free-care institutes that they maintain private practices on the side. But with Brazil's spectacular rise in the cost of living, working-class sick or injured now flock to the free-care centers and private practice has sagged.

To make up for the loss of income, the doctors pressured Congress to grant a 25-50% rise in their government wage. But when hardheaded Finance Minister Eugenio Gudin pointed out that the bill would add a billion cruzeiros yearly to the bulging budget, Café Filho vetoed it.

In protest, the Brazilian Medical Association called a general doctors' strike for Dec. 6—three days before Congress is scheduled to consider the veto. The doctors said that only skeleton medical crews would remain on duty to handle emergencies. But the President held firm, relying on Congress to uphold his anti-inflation program. For the delegates to the Hemisphere economic conference in Rio this week, the doctors' dilemma was a capsule review of Brazil's financial illness and Café Filho's strong medicine.