Update on the Brazilian Labor Movement

Abstract

Since the strike waves of 1978-1980, Brazil's new union movement has grown far beyond its initial base in the heavily concentrated automobile industry in Sao Paulo's ABC industrial belt. Combative union leaders have won control of major unions in a number of different sectors all over Brazil, particularly in metalworking, chemicals, and bank workers unions. In many other unions, traditional leaders responded to the upsurge of organizing with a new combativeness, recognizing that hanging on to their posts in a changed context required more than a monopoly over the official machinery. All sectors of the labor movement now pay lip service to the need for unions to become autonomous from the Brazilian state and to the demand for recognition of the right to strike. In spite of widespread agreement around these points, however, most unions still do not consider conditions ripe for a successful struggle around these issues; and some union leaders clearly benefit from the system as it is. Brazil's unions remain subordinated to the Ministry of Labor, which retains broad powers including the right to declare unions legal or not, oversee their finances, replace recalcitrant union leaders with its own appointees, and judge the legality of labor agreements in its labor courts. Perhaps the most important instrument of subordination is the union tax, one day's pay per year withheld from all workers' salaries and distributed by the Ministry of Labor to all unions, which is based not on the number of union members, but on the number of workers in the branch represented by that union. This system of financing reduces the incentive to recruit new union members, as the union's welfare services-financed by the union tax-are reserved for union members only. The union tax is still the most important source of financing for most unions; and most fear that an immediate abolition of the tax,