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Weekly UpdatesBrazilian labour unions have an excellent reputation in international trade union circles, often being depicted as one of the most dynamic and militant labour movements today. In Brazil, however, many scholars criticize the unions for having abandoned the struggle taken up in the late 1970s against the industrial relations system and the limits it imposes on their actions. Since its creation in the 1930s, the authoritarian corporatist labour relations system has, in fact, proven to be extremely resilient. It survived two periods of intense political upheaval--the trade union movement having played a predominant role in both--and radical change to the country's economic model without undergoing major transformations. The adoption of a new Constitution in 1988 introduced only minor alterations, leaving the pillars of the corporatist system intact until today.
In this article, we put to the test a widespread, determinist vision of Brazilian trade unionism, according to which unions maintain a paradoxical yet atavistic relationship with the heavy body of laws that provides them with advantages while limiting their freedom. In order to reflect on this, we performed field enquiries on two trade unions carefully chosen for their archetypical profile. Our research activities were conducted in the midst of the debate (from June 2005 to July 2006) on the ambitious project to reform the industrial relations system, initiated by former trade union leader and current President Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva. This gave us the opportunity to discuss with trade unionists the pros and cons of the proposed reform.
We will begin with a brief overview of the history of the trade union movement in Brazil and its interactions with the corporatist labour system. We then describe in more detail the methodology used for this study. Next, we present the results obtained for each one of the unions. Our subsequent analysis allows us to discuss these results in light of the recent attempt at reform and what they reveal about Brazilian trade unionism's relationship with the labour legislation.
History of the Brazilian Labour Movement and the Corporatist Labour Relations System
As in other Latin American countries, the Brazilian labour movement began in the late 18th century under the leadership of anarchists and communists of European descent. Since its inception, the movement experienced successive periods of expansion and decline, as its actions were often met with severe State repression. Unionists had not yet succeeded in consolidating the movement when a coup d'etat brought Getulio Vargas to power in 1930.
Soon after assuming office, Vargas began to pass a series of laws with the goal of co-opting the movement and winning the support of the working class. (1) He conceded many social benefits (paid holidays, maternity leave, minimum wage, etc.) considered advantageous in those days. As for trade unions, the laws recognized many union prerogatives, provided that they submit to strict controls over their activities. The official union system, as defined by the 1943 Consolidaco das Leis do Trabalho (CLT)-which is the compilation of labour laws passed between 1930 and 1943--functioned according to the following rules:
* legal recognition of unions: the Ministry of Labour awarded a carta sindical or "union card" to unions who agreed to comply with a series of legal requirements, such as submitting annual budget estimates and union leaders' biographies to the Ministry and requesting permission to elect new leaders;
* unicidade sindical: the power to represent all workers--union members and nonmembers--of a given socio-professional category in a given territory was granted to only one union. Thus, workers could not choose their union; they could only decide whether or not to sign up with the one representing their category in their municipality. Labour federations and confederations were also to be organized by socio-professional category. The State drafted the. definitions of these categories.
* imposto sindical or union tax: all workers--affiliated and non-affiliated--had to pay an annual union tax, which employers were obliged to deduct from workers' salaries. The Ministry of Labour was responsible for collecting the tax and distributing it among the different levels of the official union system, retaining 20% of the funds for the Ministry itself;
* explicit integration of trade Unions into the social welfare system: (2) unions could only use the funds from the imposto sindical to finance social services they were required by law to offer to their members, and not for other purposes (e.g., printing flyers, strike funds, etc.);
* right to strike: in order for a strike to be "legal," unions had to meet certain requirements, namely quorum at the assemblies held to deliberate over strike action;
* State intervention in trade unions: in addition to possessing arbitrary powers to award, refuse or revoke a union's carta sindical, the Ministry of Labour could attend union meetings, replace elected union leaders with its own agents and freeze union assets. The restrictions on the use of funds from the imposto sindical allowed the State to survey union finances;
* conflict resolution and the collective-bargaining process: labour and employers organizations were required by law to engage in collective bargaining. If they reached an impasse during negotiations, either party could request the intervention of the labour courts, known as the Justica do Trabalho. The tribunals could also intervene out of their own initiative (Gacek, 1994);
* union representation in the workplace: there were no provisions for this;
* public servants: the CLT did not apply to public servants. Government employees could not form professional associations or unions.
Typical of corporatist system, then:
Such labour legislation had long-lasting perverse effects on union practices. First, severe limits on union organizing had important "disorganizing" effects on the movement (Boito Jr, 1991). Strike regulations, the absence of union representatives in the workplace, the imposition of State-defined limits on unions' organizational bases and the prohibition of horizontal ties between unions made mobilizing workers all the more difficult.
Second, by guaranteeing funding and a monopoly over the representation of a given group of workers (through the imposto and the unicidade sindical, respectively), it was the State that guaranteed unions' organizational survival, not the workers. This allowed for, and even encouraged, the creation and maintenance of labour organizations that held distant, if any, relations to the workers they claimed to represent. Or, what was worse, it allowed for the rise of pelegos (3)--that is, union leaders who occupied official union positions in order to advance their political careers or increase their personal fortunes while doing nothing for workers. Workers were obviously alienated from such organizations.
Another custom developed under the corporatist system was that of removing conflict from the workplace and deferring it until after the labour relation had been terminated. The absence of union representatives in the workplace and in-company grievance procedures, along with a law permitting employers to fire workers without just cause, encouraged workers to keep problems at work to themselves until they were fired. Once dismissed, a minority of them sought compensation in the labour tribunals. Thus, workers became accustomed to resolving their problems by appealing to the Justica, rather than confronting their employer directly. They rarely obtained results from individual appeals to labour courts due, in part, to the courts' "chronic pattern of excessive delay" (French, 2004).
Although some initially contested the creation of the corporatist system, often denouncing it as fascist, (4) Varguista (5) and communist union leaders eventually opted for gaining control of official unions to avoid repression and to use their resources to mobilize workers (Alexander, 2003). Union activities expanded gradually in the 1950s and 1960s, thanks to the election of presidents with more lenient attitudes towards labour: Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-1961 ) and Joao Goulart (1961-1964). In the early 1960s, the movement became increasingly radical, (6) which was not tolerated for long. On March 31St 1964, the army staged a coup and established a military government. It then began to conduct massive purges of the labour movement, intervening in the unions to replace their leaders with army officers. It also adopted strict laws to make strike activity virtually impossible and it began to determine all wage increases, thereby depriving organized labour of its reason for existence (Alexander, 2003:179). Pelegos thrived in this context (Riethof, 2002).
During the ten years following the coup d'etat, there was virtually no sign of militant union action. (7) Factory committees began to slowly reappear in the mid-1970s and in the late 1970s, strikes in the automotive plants in the ABC region (8) announced the definite revival of labour militancy. The ABC Metalworkers were soon joined in protest by other "categories" and sectors--namely the public sector, which had been virtually absent from the movement before then. These waves of protest continued well into the 1980s, with public servants often playing a central role in them.
Those observing the revival of the union movement--as well as many who participated directly in it--argued that a "new unionism" or novo sindicalismo was being born. They believed that labour activists had made a break with the past. (9) Novo sindicalistas criticized their predecessors from the pre-1964 era for being distant from workers, collaborating with pelegos and accepting the limits of the corporatist system. They claimed to be focussing their efforts on organizing in the workplace, building closer relations with workers, giving priority to defending workers' immediate demands and fighting against the corporatist system and the State. Union autonomy and freedom were key demands of novo sindicalistas. In 1983, they defied the corporatist structure and founded the first union central, the Central Onica dos Trabalhadores (CUT).
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