BRAZIL Labor Fights Back
Gacek, Stanley A.
At the state-owned Volta Redonda steel mill in the state of Rio de Janeiro, conditions were hellish. Workers endured extremes of heat and noise as iron struck iron endlessly and...
...In 1981, when Brazil was in the throes of a massive recession, unionists from all over the country convened the National Conference of the Working Class to discuss the creation of a unified central...
...Moreover, the Supreme Labor Court ruled in November that the existing strike law is indeed constitutional...
...It proscribes various types of job discrimination, calls for reduction of the work week, creates new benefits, expands old entitlements, and reduces some of the state intervention which has abridged freedom of association...
...Workers endured extremes of heat and noise as iron struck iron endlessly and blast furnaces spewed toxic dust into the air...
...and 3) the confederation, which includes at least three federations and represents the professional category at the national level...
...Continuing challenges to the system may precipitate further reactions such as those suffered by the workers at Volta Redonda...
...Early the next morning 500 army regulars and federal police arrived with tanks and automatic weapons...
...Under the CLT, sindicatos provide legal, social and medical benefits to their members and "conciliate" disputes between workers and employers...
...One faction, the autenticos, consisted of unionists who had led the massive strikes of the late 1970s...
...VOLUME XXII, NO...
...In 1986 the second group formed the General Central of Workers (CGT), and it claims over 20 million members...
...Factions within the CUT include the majority Articulagao bloc which favors the mass organizing and independent radical unionism of recent years and opposes subservience to a sectarian line...
...Wearing no protective clothing, they labored for 10-hour shifts...
...They produced these impressive results with strikes that were unlawful, bargaining that was direct, and agreements that lacked the imprimatur of the labor courts...
...The right to strike provision has been heralded as the greatest victory for workers in the constitution...
...Labor and the Constitution president Jose Sarney says Brazil s new constitution is too radical and makes the country "ungovernable...
...On November 7, thousands of Volta Redonda's workers commenced a sit-down strike...
...On October 17, 800,000 federal employees in 17 of the 23 governmental ministries walked off their jobs...
...But another provision qualifies this right by leaving it to the statutory law to define the "essential industries" where The army takes over at the Volta Redonda strike 6 strikes are prohibited...
...The Left-labor Workers Party (PT) scored impressive victories in several cities, including Sdo Paulo, the second-largest metropolis in the Western Hemisphere...
...2) the federation, which combines at least five sindicatos, generally of the same category and usually at the state level...
...There are numerous requirements that must be met for a strike to be legal, and workers from industries defined as "essential" cannot strike at all.* Even when a strike is legal, the labor courts step in to settle the impasse by binding arbitration...
...In response to the provision that allows women 120 days of pregnancy leave with pay (as well as free daycare and pre-school education), employers fired scores of their female employees...
...But philosophical and personality differences got in the way...
...Rio's municipal workers struck their bankrupt employer for several weeks...
...If a union violates the CLT, the Labor Ministry can intervene and remove the leadership...
...It describes the CGT as being: made up of unions whose membership is composed of mostly PMDB...followers, approximately 90...
...Five percent of the revenues support the national confederations, 15% go to the federations, 60% to the sindicatos, and the remaining 20% are designated for a "special Unarmed strikers face off with the army at the Volta Redonda steel mill KiEUK UN ILit AMEKICAS Aemployment and salary account," which supports the operations of the Labor Ministry...
...Once their decision is made-often just a few days into a dispute-the union is prohibited from continuing the strike...
...Since 1980 they have achieved worker-controlled plant committees, agreements from employers to adjust grievances at the shop-floor level and limited job security guarantees...
...And the Brazilian National Steel Company refused to implement the provision in the country's new constitution which sets the standard work shift for industries with uninterrupted production at a maximum of six hours...
...These three groups are considered moderate today because they have expelled the radical left from their membership...
...While the pages of modern Brazilian labor history are filled with violent incidents of state repression, outright massacres are rare...
...The pro-Moscow Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) supports CGT president Joaquim Dos Santos Andrade and encourages contacts with communistbloc unions...
...The constitution also maintains the trade union tax, one of the state's most powerful controls over the labor movement...
...Due to Brazil's voracious rate of inflation-measured at an annual 1000%--they suffered a 26% decline in real wages since their last pay adjustment...
...Given its anticommunist position, it is ironic that the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) has opted to support the CGT...
...These changes have occurred in the streets, on the picket lines and at the bargaining table, while the official labor code remains virtually intact...
...Other factions-independent socialists, communists and Trotskyists-clamor for more rank-and-file control of the national executive and a more overtly political agenda...
...Unlike the United States, union recognition in Brazil depends entirely on the government, not on the employer...
...Challenging the Old Order Brazilian workers began to seriously challenge this entrenched order in the late 1970s with strikes of unprecedented magnitude...
...However this victory may prove to be a pyrrhic one if the Brazilian judiciary adopts a vengeful policy against trade unions...
...The CLT put labor squarely under state control and established mechanisms that effectively impeded solidarity...
...Workers were strictly represented by three levels of union organization which continue to this day: 1) the sindicato, which represents workers of one professional category generally in one city or municipio (similar to a U.S...
...Stanley A. Gacek is a labor attorney and Assistant Director of International Affairs for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union...
...Yet the old paternalistic controls and limits on collective worker action remain basically intact...
...Violation of the strike law has been a frequent pretext for state intervention...
...6 (MARCH 1989) o 0 Z 0 0 0 over nine million workers...
...Thus, the original definition of these industries continues, as do the severe penalties for violating the strike law...
...As these dramatic changes continue-direct bargaining between employers and workers, labor contracts which contradict labor court decisions, illegal strikes-they threaten to isolate the official labor system and the judges, conservative labor leaders and employers who have a stake in it...
...The creation of labor centrals representing workers at a national level, regardless of category or geography, has been one of the more significant developments of the last decade...
...The other major bloc consisted of labor leaders advocating class unity and collaboration with the state to gain benefits for all workers...
...There, 52 year-old professor, social worker and PT activist Luiza Erundina defeated Paulo Maluf, a right-wing politician known for his reactionary populism and corruption...
...Finally, it is not clear how the newly created constitutional rights will be implemented and enforced...
...They have serious differences on the trade union tax, trade union autonomy and freedom of association...
...Over the next 24 hours, at least three strikers were killed and fifty wounded...
...county or township...
...Naturally the more quiescent associations get the government's nod of approval...
...The workers at the Volta Redonda plant were victims of the government's unremitting hostility to the constitution when they demanded their newly won right to a six-hour shift...
...Both agree on agrarian reform, employment stability and the demand for a forty-hour work week...
...The constitution guarantees the military's right to intervene when "national security" is at risk...
...The labor centrals are not officially linked with any political party, although most CUT leaders are members of the PT...
...In 1983 the autnticos formed the Unified Central of Workers (CUT), which claims to represent CUT president Jair Meneguelli addresses striking metalworkers * These include water, electrical energy, petroleum, gas and production of other combustible materials, banks, transport, communications, loading and unloading, hospitals, clinics, maternity services, pharmacies and public services at the municipal, state and federal level, as well as other industries defined as essential by presidential decree...
...Strikers shut down every oil refinery in the country on November 11...
...If two associations are competing for representation of the same category, the Ministry chooses the more solvent and "active" of the two...
...Until 1987 the pro-Albanian Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B) had considerable presence in the CGT, but in that year its labor militants walked out of a plenary session to protest certain policies and leaders of the CGT...
...The funds are held in the Bank of Brazil and can be frozen by the authorities at any time if unions do not comply with expenditure requirements...
...Unions can use the funds only for the legal, medical and social assistance programs outlined in the CLT...
...Over the next two years, the factions attempted some reconciliation but to no avail...
...The Articulawao won nine of the 15 seats on the CUT's national executive committee at its third national congress held in Belo Horizonte in September 1988.In the CGT, militants of the orthodox communist Left, while not numerous, wield considerable influence...
...In 1943 the populist regime of Getulio Vargas expanded the existing corporatist system by enacting the Consolidation of Brazilian Labor Laws (CLT...
...Preventing Solidarity In the last decade of Brazil's "transition to democracy" there have been more changes in the country's labor relations than in the previous fifty years...
...Also in the CGT is the October 8th Revolutionary Movement (MR8), one of several guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship in the late 1960s and early 1970s...
...He recently attended the third national congress of Brazil's Unified Central of Workers (CUT) and is writing a larger work on Brazilian labor...
...Those who favored this approach-which has long been advocated by the Brazilian Communist Party-believe that the state's paternalism has done some good for Brazilian labor...
...Most of the CGT leadership has been associated with the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) and the newly-formed Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), organizations of the centerLeft that are descendants of the government-sanctioned opposition of the late 1960s and early 1970s...
...The Labor Ministry collects an annual trade union tax, amounting to one day's wages, from all organizable workers whether or not they are actually union members...
...It remains to be seen just how the PT's victory at the polls will thwart the government's violent impulses from becoming the official policy of keeping workers in line...
...They demanded a complete break from the corporatist order-total trade union freedom, including abolition of the trade union tax...
...Voters reacted to the Volta Redonda killings at the polls one week later, electing a number of progressive candidates in nationwide municipal elections...
...It claims ties to Cuba and the Guevaran revolutionary tradition...
...The constitution eliminates the government's power to intervene in a union, compelling the Labor Ministry to pursue regular judicial channels in order to discipline unions and their leaders...
...The remaining 10% are of mostly democratic left orientation (the PC, MR8 and PC do B...
...To be recognized as a union, an association representing at least one-third of the workers of a given category in the municipio must submit a petition to the Labor Ministry...
...During the weeks leading up to the elections, hundreds of thousands of workers struck the steel, petroleum, electrical utility and municipal services industries...
...Those radicals who are still calling for armed struggle can be found militating in the PT...
...Yet the last decade has seriously shaken the foundations of Brazil's corporatist structure, and it may be impossible to turn back the clock...
...Labor's efforts to reduce the work week from 48 to 40 hours were stymied by a powerful corporate counterlobby, forcing a compromise of 44 hours...
Vol. 22 • March 1989 • No. 6
