Working for Democracy: Brazil's Organized Working Class in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Working-class collective action may appear to be in decline. In many ad vanced capitalist countries, industrial working class has shrunk, rates of unionization have dropped, unions have lost power, and parties represent ing labor have slipped in popularity. At same time, new scholarship has questioned universality of class-based collective action, insisting that it is contingent, socially constructed, and historically specific. The relevance of class to contemporary politics, even its very existence, is questioned more and more forcefully. It may be that those who study labor movements will soon study not working-class collective action but in words of a college administrator, the movement of labor from one place to anoth er.1 Yet class identity and working-class collective action as a form of politics are not in decline everywhere. Taking one powerful indicator of such action?the formation of trade unions?we find that percentage of workers in trade unions actually increased even in advanced capitalist countries such as Sweden, Italy, and Canada between 1970 and 1990.2 And in many so-called newly industrializing countries, trade union growth has been explosive in last few decades.3 Brazil is one of those countries. Its trade unionists have become not only numerous, but militant: Since late 1970s unions have played a key role in opposing military regime that was reformed into a civilian one in 1985, in dismantling state controls over labor, and in challenging neoliberal economic reforms. The weight of organized working class has increased mightily in Brazil over last quarter-century, in terms of both its sheer numerical strength and its role as a political actor. Organized labor has also been a key element in growth of support for left-wing parties since Brazil returned to a system of multiparty compe tition in 1982. These parties include Democratic Labor party, or Par tido Democr?tico Trabalhista (PDT); Socialist party, or Partido Social ista Brasileiro (PSB); Communist party, or Partido Comunista do Brasil (PC do B); and most significantly, Workers' party, or Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). All of these parties have appealed strongly to organized working class in their rhetoric and programs and all, save PDT, increased their representation in national congress in 1994 elections. Together, they control one-fifth of seats in lower house, C?mara dos Deputados. In historiography of Latin American labor, Brazil has often been