Shop Floor Politics and Labor Movements: Democratization in Brazil and South Korea

Abstract

The literature on democratic transitions has largely overlooked the role of labor and the micro foundations of labor mobilization in the democratization process. Based on the comparative analysis of labor-management relations, organization of production, and social struggles at the shop floor in two late-industrializing countries, this paper examines the reasons behind increased labor mobilization in Brazil in the early 1980s and South Korea in post-1987. It argues that increased solidarity and mobilization among the workers was a result of arduous work regimes at the shop floor, strict managerial control, and, in the case of South Korea, "company paternalism." While patterns of authoritarian industrialization and relative deprivation of the industrial workers created a fertile ground for labor mobilization, it was the changing labor-management interactions at the shop floor and the growing influence of workplace organizations that strengthened the labor movements in both countries. After taking on the employers, workers could then challenge the state, thus playing a growing role in the process of democratization.