At the state-owned Volta Redonda steel mill in the state of Rio de Janeiro, conditions were hellish. Workers en- dured extremes of heat and noise as iron struck iron endlessly and blast furnaces spewed toxic dust into the air. Wearing no protective clothing, they labored for 10-hour shifts. 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 ad- justment. 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 uninter- rupted production at a maximum of six hours. Stanley A. Gacek is a labor attorney and Assistant Director of International Affairs for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. He recently attended the third national congress of Brazil's Unified Central of Workers (CUT) and is writing a larger work on Brazilian labor. On November 7, thousands of Volta Redonda's workers commenced a sit-down strike. Early the next morn- ing 500 army regulars and federal po- lice arrived with tanks and automatic weapons. Over the next 24 hours, at least three strikers were killed and fifty wounded. While the pages of modern Brazil- ian labor history are filled with violent incidents of state repression, outright massacres are rare. Voters reacted to the Volta Redonda killings at the polls one week later, electing a number of progressive candidates in nationwide municipal elections. The Left-labor Workers Party (PT) scored impressive victories in several cities, including Sdo Paulo, the second-largest metropo- lis in the Western Hemisphere. There, 52 year-old professor, social worker and PT activist Luiza Erundina de- feated Paulo Maluf, a right-wing poli- tician known for his reactionary popu- lism and corruption. During the weeks leading up to the elections, hundreds of thousands of workers struck the steel, petroleum, electrical utility and municipal serv- ices industries. On October 17, 800,000 federal employees in 17 of the 23 governmental ministries walked off their jobs. Strikers shut down ev- ery oil refinery in the country on No- vember 11. Rio's municipal workers struck their bankrupt employer for several weeks. Preventing Solidarity In the last decade of Brazil's "tran- sition to democracy" there have been more changes in the country's labor relations than in the previous fifty years. These changes have occurred in the streets, on the picket lines and at the bargaining table, while the official labor code remains virtually intact. As these dramatic changes continue-direct bargaining between employers and workers, labor con- tracts 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. In 1943 the populist regime of Getulio Vargas expanded the existing corporatist system by enacting the Consolidation of Brazilian Labor Laws (CLT). The CLT put labor squarely under state control and established mechanisms that effectively impeded solidarity. Workers were strictly rep- resented by three levels of union or- ganization 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. county or township); 2) the federation, which combines at least five sindicatos, generally of the same category and usually at the state level; and 3) the confederation, which includes at least three federations and represents the professional category at the national level. Under the CLT, sindicatos provide legal, social and medical benefits to their members and "conciliate" dis- putes between workers and employ- ers. The Labor Ministry collects an annual trade union tax, amounting to one day's wages, from all organizable workers whether or not they are actu- ally union members. Five percent of the revenues support the national con- federations, 15% go to the federations, 60% to the sindicatos, and the remain- ing 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. 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 re- quirements. Unions can use the funds only for the legal, medical and social assistance programs outlined in the CLT. Unlike the United States, union recognition in Brazil depends entirely on the government, not on the em- ployer. 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. If two associations are competing for repre- sentation of the same category, the Ministry chooses the more solvent and "active" of the two. Naturally the more quiescent associations get the govern- ment's nod of approval. If a union violates the CLT, the Labor Ministry can intervene and re- move the leadership. Violation of the strike law has been a frequent pretext for state intervention. There are nu- merous 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 arbi- tration. Once their decision is made-often just a few days into a dispute-the union is prohibited from continuing the strike. Challenging the Old Order Brazilian workers began to seri- ously challenge this entrenched order in the late 1970s with strikes of un- precedented magnitude. Since 1980 they have achieved worker-controlled plant committees, agreements from employers to adjust grievances at the shop-floor level and limited job secu- rity guarantees. 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 creation of labor centrals rep- resenting workers at a national level, regardless of category or geography, has been one of the more significant developments of the last decade. In 1981, when Brazil was in the throes of a massive recession, unionists from all over the country convened the Na- tional Conference of the Working Class to discuss the creation of a uni- fied central. But philosophical and personality differences got in the way. One faction, the autenticos, consisted of unionists who had led the massive strikes of the late 1970s. They de- manded a complete break from the corporatist order-total trade union freedom, including abolition of the trade union tax. The other major bloc consisted of labor leaders advocating class unity and collaboration with the state to gain benefits for all workers. Those who favored this approach-which has long been advo- cated by the Brazilian Communist Party-believe that the state's pater- nalism has done some good for Brazil- ian labor. Over the next two years, the fac- tions attempted some reconciliation but to no avail. In 1983 the autnticos formed the Unified Central of Work- ers (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, phar- macies and public services at the munici- pal, state and federal level, as well as other industries defined as essential by presiden- tial decree. VOLUME XXII, NO. 6 (MARCH 1989) o 0 Z 0 0 0 over nine million workers. In 1986 the second group formed the General Cen- tral of Workers (CGT), and it claims over 20 million members. Both agree on agrarian reform, employment sta- bility and the demand for a forty-hour work week. They have serious differ- ences on the trade union tax, trade un- ion autonomy and freedom of associa- tion. The labor centrals are not offi- cially linked with any political party, although most CUT leaders are mem- bers of the PT. Most of the CGT lead- ership has been associated with the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) and the newly-formed Bra- zilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), organizations of the center- Left that are descendants of the gov- ernment-sanctioned opposition of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Factions within the CUT include the majority Articulagao bloc which favors the mass organizing and inde- pendent radical unionism of recent years and opposes subservience to a sectarian line. Other factions-independent socialists, com- munists and Trotskyists-clamor for more rank-and-file control of the na- tional executive and a more overtly political agenda. The Articulawao won nine of the 15 seats on the CUT's na- tional executive committee at its third national congress held in Belo Hori- zonte in September 1988.In the CGT, militants of the ortho- dox communist Left, while not numer- ous, wield considerable influence. The pro-Moscow Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) supports CGT president Joaquim Dos Santos Andrade and en- courages contacts with communist- bloc unions. Also in the CGT is the October 8th Revolutionary Movement (MR8), one of several guerrilla groups that fought against the military dicta- torship in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It claims ties to Cuba and the Guevaran revolutionary tradition. Un- til 1987 the pro-Albanian Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B) had consid- erable presence in the CGT, but in that year its labor militants walked out of a plenary session to protest certain poli- cies and leaders of the CGT. Given its anticommunist position, it is ironic that the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) has opted to support the CGT. It de- scribes the CGT as being: made up of unions whose membership is composed of mostly PMDB...followers, approximately 90%. The remaining 10% are of mostly democratic left orientation (the PC, MR8 and PC do B). These three groups are considered moderate today because they have expelled the radical left from their membership. Those radicals who are still calling for armed struggle can be found militating in the PT. Labor and the Constitution president Jose Sarney says Brazil s new constitution is too radical and makes the country "ungovernable." It proscribes various types of job dis- crimination, calls for reduction of the work week, creates new benefits, ex- pands old entitlements, and reduces some of the state intervention which has abridged freedom of association. Yet the old paternalistic controls and limits on collective worker action re- main basically intact. Labor's efforts to reduce the work week from 48 to 40 hours were sty- mied by a powerful corporate counter- lobby, forcing a compromise of 44 hours. In response to the provision that allows women 120 days of pregnancy leave with pay (as well as free day- care and pre-school education), em- ployers fired scores of their female employees. 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. 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. However this victory may prove to be a pyrrhic one if the Brazil- ian judiciary adopts a vengeful policy against trade unions. The constitution also maintains the trade union tax, one of the state's most powerful controls over the labor movement. The right to strike provision has been heralded as the greatest victory for workers in the constitution. 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. Thus, the origi- nal definition of these industries con- tinues, as do the severe penalties for violating the strike law. Moreover, the Supreme Labor Court ruled in Novem- ber that the existing strike law is in- deed constitutional. Finally, it is not clear how the newly created constitu- tional rights will be implemented and enforced. Continuing challenges to the sys- tem may precipitate further reactions such as those suffered by the workers at Volta Redonda. The constitution guarantees the military's right to inter- vene when "national security" is at risk. Yet the last decade has seriously shaken the foundations of Brazil's cor- poratist structure, and it may be im- possible to turn back the clock. It re- mains 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 keep- ing workers in line.
