The Brazilian Labor Movement under PT Governments · 2018. 11. 19. · Fernando Henrique Cardoso...

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 198, Vol. 41 No. 5, September 2014, 184–199DOI: 10.1177/0094582X14545972© 2014 Latin American Perspectives

184

The Brazilian Labor Movement under PT Governmentsby

Andréia Galvão Translated by Laurence Hallewell

Neoliberalism in Brazil led the labor movement to adopt a more conciliatory and col-laborative stance, emphasizing negotiation and becoming receptive to the idea of social partnership. The discrediting of neoliberalism made it possible for the Partido dos Trabalhadores to win the presidency in 2002, and the unions had an important role in this victory. Rather than changing the direction of the labor movement, however, the PT gov-ernments have created political and economic conditions that reinforce it by expanding the institutional mechanisms available for collaboration with the state and strengthening the defense of immediate economic interests by creating conditions that allowed wage increases and improvements in collective agreements. This success in economic terms contrasts with the unions’ limited political intervention, an expression of a social democracy with-out reform, confined to what is possible.

O neoliberalismo no Brasil incentivou o movimentou sindical a assumir uma posição mais voltada para a conciliação e a colaboração, que prioriza a negociação e se torna recep-tiva ao conceito de parceria social. Foi o desprestígio do neoliberalismo que possibilitou o triunfo do Partido dos Trabalhadores na eleição presidencial de 2002 e os sindicatos des-empenharam um papel importante nessa vitória. Entretanto, ao invés de mudar o rumo do movimento sindical, os governos PT têm criado as condições políticas e econômicas que reforçam a posição atual desse movimento, aumentando os mecanismos institucionais para colaboração com o Estado e estimulando a defesa dos interesses econômicos imediatos em um contexto que vem permitindo aumentos salariais e melhoras nos acordos coletivos. Ao sucesso econômico se contrapõe a limitada ação política dos sindicatos, expressão de uma democracia social sem reformas, que se restringe à gestão do possível.

Keywords: Labor unions, Social partnership, Neoliberalism, Social democracy, PT administrations

The labor movement in Brazil suffered greatly from the neoliberalism that was implemented in the 1990s and soon became entrenched. Beyond the politi-cal and economic changes introduced in that decade, a questioning of the ideo-logical bases of the labor movement and a confusion of political identities had a strong impact on the movement, transforming its concepts and its practices (Hyman, 1994). Moving toward a more conciliatory and collaborative stance, the so-called propositive unionism represented a change in the direction of the largest and most active of Brazil’s federations of unions, the Central Única dos

Andréia Galvão is a professor of political science at the Universidade de Campinas and the author of Neoliberalismo e reforma trabalhista no Brasil (2013). Laurence Hallewell was, until his retirement, Latin Americanist librarian at the Lehman Library, Columbia University. The author thanks her LAP partners for their criticisms and suggestions with regard to the first drafts of this text.

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Galvão / BRAZILIAN LABOR UNDER PT GOVERNMENTS 185

Trabalhadores (Unique Workers’ Central—CUT), leading it to emphasize nego-tiation and become receptive to the idea of social partnership. It and its chief rival, the Força Sindical (Union Force—FS), increasingly converged toward “citizen” or “civic” unionism—in practice, a service-oriented unionism whereby unions offered their members services that hitherto had been provided by the state, favoring the replacement of universal policies with alternatives of limited applicability and reach. Some of these services, such as programs for providing professional qualifications, contributed to spreading the neoliberal agenda in that they promoted individualizing the problem of unemployment and placing the blame for being out of work on the workers themselves (Galvão, 2006).1

This change, however, was not absolute or definitive, nor did it lack contra-dictions. The negative economic conditions prevailing at the end of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration left neoliberalism discredited and made it possible for Lula da Silva to win the elections of 2002. The unions had an important role in this victory and came to political prominence in the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party—PT) administration, as is evidenced by the number of union leaders who were given posts in the new federal government (D’Araujo, 2009), their participation in the tripartite organizations it set up, and some of the measures it introduced.

My objective in this paper is to analyze the Brazilian labor movement since the PT came to power in an attempt to determine whether its political preeminence has led to any change in the direction of the political developments that I have just outlined. My main hypothesis is that the PT governments, rather than altering the situation, created political and economic conditions that reinforced it by empha-sizing two apparently opposite conceptions of unions: social partnership and the defense of immediate economic interests.2 A second hypothesis is that the linking of these two conceptions is the result of the impact of neoliberalism on social democratic organizations and parties, a development in which I consider it fair to include the PT (Samuels, 2004). Neoliberalism has created a peculiar form of social democracy, one that eschews reform—according to Lanzaro (2008: 50) a “creole” or cross-breed social democracy marked by a certain continuation of the neolib-eral model and by an “effectively reformist program, albeit a quite modest one.”3

This paper has three parts. The first part seeks briefly to lay the bases for the main hypothesis. The second deals with the process of labor movement reorgani-zation started by the PT’s achieving power at the federal level, pointing out the differences and similarities between the union federations, their principal demands, and some of the conflicts they were involved in. The third part brings us back to some elements of the political situation that can be used to characterize the PT administrations. I am not going to discuss economic policy or the develop-ment model in any detail. Rather, I will concentrate on the factors that make it easier to understand the reorganization of the Brazilian labor movement and how its relationship with the PT governments4 helped them carry out their program.

InstItutIonal PartIcIPatIon In a context of economIc Growth

During Lula da Silva’s first presidency, the government broadened the insti-tutional participation of unions—something that the 1988 Constitution had



186 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

made possible and that was implemented in the 1990s with the establishment of councils to supervise welfare and pension funds—through the creation of two tripartite organs, the Forum Nacional do Trabalho (National Labor Forum—FNT) and the Conselho de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Council for Economic and Social Development—CDES), to debate the reforms they were seeking to implement. The broadening of institutional channels and the close relationship between government and a sizable part of the union movement affected the conceptions and strategies of the unions, contributing to strengthening the outlook for social partnership. But the legislative changes planned were never discussed by the FNT, nor was the social security reform introduced in 2003 ever effectively discussed by the CDES, giving rise to the impression that these forums were more for consultation than for policy mak-ing. For Ricci (2010: 16), government “had open debates with organizations and unions but brought them into the state with respect to specific policies based on agreements and partnerships, rather as a sort of dependency, given that, in contrast to the neocorporative logic, these social agents were never effectively engaged in drawing up public policies and the process of decision making.”5 Another interpretation close to this one is that the government adopted meas-ures to “nullify the autonomous and independent strength of the union move-ment through a constant co-opting of its leadership and a ‘state take-over’ of workers’ organizations” (Druck, 2006: 330–331).6

Union staff, members of the government, and union leaders close to the gov-ernment have offered an opposite evaluation. For Clemente Ganz Lúcio (2010) technical director of the Departamento Intersindical de Estatistica e Estudos Socio-econômicos (Inerunion Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Research—DIEESE) unionism has played a positive role, influ-encing the political agenda to the point that the government has made room for the unions’ agenda and recognized the unions as legitimate intermediaries. For Antonio Augusto de Queiroz (2007), director of documentation of the Departamento Intersindical de Assessoria Parlamentar (Interunion Department of Parliamentary Advice—DIAP), “except for public service pension reform and changes in the labor rights of employees of small and micro businesses, [the government] has behaved in agreement with the thinking of most of the labor movement.” For Luiz Dulci (2010: 143), director of the Instituto Lula, social movements have strengthened the legitimacy of the Lula presidency and its ability to govern:

In contradiction to what its detractors assert, participatory democracy is most definitely not a process of the state’s co-opting the social movements. . . . The popular organizations discussed things with the state and voiced their opinion on matters of public policy, retaining complete freedom to criticize and to orga-nize protests. It was not rare for them to disagree openly with government. . . . This was what happened during Lula’s first administration with regard to some important aspects of macroeconomic policy.

These analyses offer us topics to ponder about the relationship between the unions and the government, but they do not seem enough for us fully to com-prehend the difficulties and contradictions of the labor movement vis-à-vis left-wing governments. To get beyond the co-optation–autonomy dichotomy,




we must take into account their common political origins, the close relationship between the CUT and the PT, and the fact that, consequently, they share a polit-ical and ideological goal, an aim referred to by one group of analysts as “neode-velopmentalism.”7 In other words, one has to consider the transformations undergone both by the party and by the section of the labor movement close to it and the reciprocal relations between unionism and politics.

Participation by the labor movement in administrative decision making has led the corporation-owned mass media to refer pejoratively to the PT adminis-trations as a “labor-union republic” (Brandt and Tosta, 2008; Felício, 2005; Loyola, 2010). This nickname is based on a mistaken diagnosis. It is clear that the Brazilian labor movement has never before been so involved in influencing policy at the federal level and that it is playing a role in driving public policy that it had never had a chance to play before. Union participation and the vis-ibility of its effects do not mean that the unions decide the direction of the political agenda, although they may have some influence on it.8 Their interven-tion is limited: little is ever discussed and even less is implemented. Its most successful proposal has been readjusting the minimum wage, the product of an agreement negotiated between the union federations and the government in 2007, which provides for the rate to be corrected annually in line with each previous year’s inflation and any change in Brazil’s gross domestic product in that period.

The policy adjusting the minimum wage, along with the campaigns to reduce the workweek to 40 hours9 and to end dismissal without just cause (through the government’s signing of the International Labor Organization’s Convention 158), was one of the few demands aimed at consolidating and extending social rights of universal application presented in this period. Generally speaking, the unions have been concerned with more specific demands, accepting the idea that conditions differ in different sectors of the labor market. This idea has justified the fragmentation of negotiations and rules along the lines pursued by the sectoral “chambers” in the 1990s.10 Thus citizenship is understood not as guaranteeing universal rights but as a way of securing citizens’ participation in the market—which explains the growing concern about having a bank account, access to credit, and the capacity to acquire consumer goods.11

The unions’ relationship to the state is no longer seen in terms of social class as it was by a sizable portion of the left, including the unions, during the 1980s in the context of the struggle against the military dictatorship. The political and ideological closeness of the unions to the PT governments makes it easy for them to approach the state (which has ceased to be looked upon as an adversary) and give priority to institutional action. Pressure is now put on the state by presenting proposals rather than being linked to the mobilization required to achieve hegemony at the level of civil society.12 Thus the “struggle for hegemony” comes down to just having a project, while any reference to social class in the project may vanish or be diluted in a politics of compromise.13

During this process of transformation, the unions’ shift to making propos-als and providing services leads to a discourse on citizenship and solidarity that is vague enough to cover a variety of social aims, among them sustainable




development, decent working conditions, and equitable income distribu-tion. This allows the unions to support measures of concern to the employ-ers and to promote initiatives in partnership with capital. The CUT was the chief author of the 2005 Project for Development from the Viewpoint of the Working Class, which proposed a new development model capable of restoring the state’s ability to make headway in overcoming neoliberalism. This proposal led to the Working-Class Agenda for Development with Sovereignty, Democracy, and Respect for Labor. Supported by other union federations, this agenda included reducing the size of the primary budget surplus and revising the law on public-private partnerships and on fiscal responsibility. Revising rather than repealing these laws was a paradox in that they limited the state’s capacity to make investments (Galvão, 2012). Also paradoxical was the agenda’s the defense of strengthening the role of banks, state enterprises, and pension funds in financing development policy, since the pension funds are involved in privatization and the restruc-turing of production.14

Compared with the situation in the 1990s, the labor movement is having considerable success in the defense of its immediate economic interests. According to the ongoing wages and salaries oversight maintained by the DIEESE, in 2003 18.8 percent of the collective bargaining agreements and con-ventions analyzed produced wage increases above the inflation rate, while 22.8 involved increases equal to inflation and 58.4 percent increases below it. In 2006, 83.6 percent were above it (DIEESE, 2008: 3). In 2008, at the time of the international economic crisis, this figure fell to 78.3 percent, but in 2010 87.8 percent and in 2012 94.6 percent of negotiations achieved wage increases in real terms (DIEESE, 2013: 3). Negotiations that took place through unions also achieved agreement on minimum wage levels and on profit sharing. The DIEESE data also show some recovery in the figures for strikes in some sectors or firms. Although the system for recording strikes reveals that the yearly aver-age number is still below that of the 1990s (448 in 2004–2012 as opposed to 900 in 1990–1999), the number of strikes has been increasing (from 302 in 2004 to 877 in 2012), and they have been achieving significant outcomes for the work-ers (Boito and Marcelino, 2010).

Although striking has not been outlawed and there been no bar to the achievement of material gains, an inclination toward social partnership favors political moderation. This ends up limiting opportunities for the labor move-ment to work toward broader political and social objectives or to oppose mea-sures that tend to reduce social rights and those of the working class. This arouses criticism and leads to splits in the movement.

a DIvIDeD but DynamIc labor movement

The reorganization of the labor movement under the PT governments was started because of different union assessments of the Lula administration and encouraged by the law recognizing union federations.15 Three nationwide left-wing organizations emerged from the CUT. The first was the Coordenação Nacional Lutas (National Coordination of Struggles—CONLUTAS) in 2004.




(It changed its name in 2010 to the Central Sindical e Popular-Conlutas [Federation of Unions and the Social Movements].) The Intersindical (Interunion) appeared in 2006 only to split in 2008, with the two successors keeping the same name but with distinctive subtitles: Instrumento de Luta e Organização da Classe Trabalhadora (Instrument of Struggle and Organization of the Working Class) and Instrumento de Luta, Unidade de Classe e Construção de uma Nova Central (Instrument of Struggle, Class Unity, and Forming a New Confederation). The third was the Central Geral dos Trabalhadores e Trabalhadoras do Brazil (General Federation of Working Men and Women of Brazil—CTB) in 2007. The right wing of the trade union movement also reshaped itself with the creation of two new organizations: the Nova Central Sindical de Trabalhadores (New Union Workers’ Federation—NCST), created in 2006 and basically made up of official federations and confederations, and the União Geral dos Trabalhadores (General Workers’ Union—UGT), created in 2007 as a result of the merger of the Confederação Geral do Trabalho (General Federation of Labor—CGT) (created in 1986 as a counterweight to the CUT), the Central Autônoma dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Autonomous Federation—CAT) (created in 1995 and uniting sectors of Christian unionism), and Social Democracia Sindical (Union Social Democracy—SDS) (created in 1997 after a schism in the FS). Apart from the CONLUTAS and the Intersindical, all of these16 became supporters of PT governments (Galvão, Tropia, and Marcelino, 2013).

The relationship to political parties is one of the factors that helps us under-stand the division of the labor movement into rival federations and their political stances: despite the law forbidding financial contributions by unions to parties or candidates, some union federations have well-known partisan links, such as the CUT with the PT and the FS with the Democratic Labor Party (Partido Democrático Trabalhista—PDT), while others, such as the UGT, have a leadership split between different parties, which explains the UGT’s talk of “neutrality” during the presidential campaign of 2010. The three organizations that emerged out of the CUT are linked to other parties and have adopted different positions toward the PT governments. The Partido Comunista do Brasil (Communist Party of Brazil—PCdoB), one of the com-ponents of the alliance sustaining these governments, is predominant in the CTB, but this has not stopped the federation from being a critic of some PT government policies. The Partido Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificado (Unified Socialist Workers’ Party—PSTU) controls the CONLUTAS and is not part of the coalition backing the PT government. The Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (Socialism and Freedom Party—PSOL) is the major party influenc-ing the “Class Unity” faction of the Intersindical, which also opposes the gov-ernment. These party links are neither formal nor exclusive and there is nothing stopping members from joining other parties, but they do indicate political preferences and inclinations.

The CUT, the FS, the UGT, the CTB, the NCST, and the CGTB have had their representativeness recognized by the Ministry of Labor and Employment. The government’s 2012 survey established that 36.7 percent of the country’s unionized workers belonged to the CUT, 13.7 percent to the FS, 11.3 percent to the UGT, 9.2 percent to the CTB, and 8.1 percent to the NCTS.




The CGTB lost its recognition in 2012 when it failed to reach the minimum of 7 percent (Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego, 2012). The CONLUTAS lacks enough associates to make use of this prerogative, and the Intersindical does not seek official recognition as a federation of unions. In February 2014, according to the Labor Ministry, about 25 percent of the 10,047 registered unions were associated with no central federation—an indication that there is still opportunity for the federations to grow and for competition among them to intensify.

Despite this organizational division and the support of most of the labor movement for the PT governments, there was some unity of action among organizations allied with the government and those opposed to it as a response to the effects of the international economic crisis in 2008. For example, an early series of actions called for an increase in the minimum wage, a reduction in the workday, and job security for all workers. A second set of actions brought gov-ernment workers together against a proposal by the executive branch to create state foundations under private management that could contract workers according to the law governing the private sector to perform tasks that were not the sole responsibility of the state, a law that would abolish integral pension plans for future recruits to the federal civil service and institute complementary social insurance, and even a law that would limit the right of public employees to strike.17 The union federations also opposed bills originating in Congress such as one that would prohibit any increase in federal expenditures on person-nel and social security contributions for 10 years—which could mean, in prac-tice, a civil service wage freeze. The cut in expenditures introduced early in Dilma Rousseff’s presidency on the pretext of balancing the budgets for 2011 and 2012 led to protests and demands for the fulfillment of agreements regard-ing wage adjustments and the restructuring of positions. The breaking of agree-ments and the absence of any real negotiations despite the existence of institutional channels for them led to significant and prolonged strikes, mainly in education, a sector that is an important base for the CONLUTAS and the Intersindical.

A third area of activity involved workers in the private sector. Among the various conflicts of the period, an outstanding role was played by the construc-tion workers’ strikes of 2011 and 2012 for better working conditions, social benefits, and wages. These strikes, often in defiance of the union leadership, paralyzed the building of hydroelectric plants and soccer stadiums. The large number of workers involved and the fact that the strikes affected large-scale projects that were part of the government’s program for increasing growth led to the opening of negotiations among government, the corporations, and the union federations and a major tripartite agreement that the CONLUTAS signed despite its disquiet over some aspects of the process.

The differences between union federations reveal distinct conceptions of the struggle that are better understood in the light of their positions with regard to government policies such as fiscal restraint. To limit the impact of the worldwide crisis, the Lula government agreed to several exceptions for corporations and, through the Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (National Bank for Economic and Social Development—BNDES), financing at lower rates of interest. This policy culminated in 2011, early in the Dilma administration,




with the launching of the Greater Brazil Plan, which introduced tax incentives intended to stimulate the economy. The most controversial for the unions was the replacement in some sectors of the economy of the employers’ social security contribution of 20 percent of their payrolls with new quotas of only 1–2 percent. According to the DIAP (2012: 12), this measure’s “consequence was a loss to the social security funds on the order of R$130 billion.”

While the CONLUTAS and the Intersindical opposed this sort of measure, citing their concern over the social effects of the decline in contributions, the CUT argued that the agreements would provide compensating social benefits by retaining and increasing formal employment, combating high labor turn-over, and ending modern slavery and child labor. It was not opposed to layoffs in themselves but objected to the absence of targets that would oblige the ben-eficiaries of these government incentives to undertake the promotion of “decent” working conditions.

Concern for uniting the struggles in the public and private sectors, among different categories of workers, and even among union organizations is a con-stant in the publications of the CONLUTAS,18 partly because it is made up not only of unions but also of social movements. It has not refrained from taking part in strikes and the economic struggle but, on the contrary, encouraged them and made an effort to associate the particular economic conditions of the sector with the national and international political situation.19 To this end it has pro-posed days of complete work stoppage as a way of resisting the government’s “attacks” on workers’ rights and denounced the policy of destroying public service, manifestations of imperialism, and capitalist aggression. It has sought to attribute a common political direction to these struggles. However, the polit-icization that it proposes seeks to hold the government responsible not just for its own actions but also for those of employers (in its view, for example, the government ought not to concede anything to employers without first stop-ping them from ever firing anyone). It demands the reversal of all the privatiza-tions introduced by the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government, annulment of all auctions of exploration rights for petroleum and natural gas, and the reestablishment of the state petroleum monopoly without compensation for the multinationals working in the sector through its “Petroleum Must Be Ours!” campaign. The CUT, which proclaims itself to be defending a proactive agenda, points to the contradictory character of some government measures as threat-ening established rights and protests against specific government projects such as the privatization of seaports and airports while not opposing the govern-ment more generally.

the ImPact of neolIberalIsm on the socIal DemocratIc left: lImIteD reforms anD the manaGement of the

PossIble

Lula’s election was the result of a brake on neoliberalism to which the social movements had actively contributed but also revealed the difficulties in building any alternative economic model. His first term was marked by a continuation of the neoliberal macroeconomic policy that unleashed criticism on the part of the




social movements, the unions among them. Nevertheless, this macroeconomic orthodoxy, applied in a favorable economic climate and assisted by a few meas-ures of a social nature,20 did not prevent positive economic indicators’ being reg-istered for both of Lula’s presidential terms: significant economic growth between 2004 and 2008,21 a decline in unemployment and informal employment,22 contin-ued control of inflation, and an increase in the minimum wage in real terms of 53.67 percent between 2002 and 2010.

These results secured wide support for the government among ordinary people that was confirmed by Lula’s reelection in 2006 and Dilma’s election in 2010 and an intense debate on the nature of the development model being fol-lowed—whether there should be a clear break from neoliberalism or only the introduction of some modifications of the model (Novelli, 2011). For Sallum Jr. (2010), the changes observed between Lula’s first and second terms provoked a “liberal-developmentalist” inflection. Barbosa and Souza (2010) identify in the growth acceleration program launched in 2007 and the increase in public borrowing directed toward the financing of housing and production a “new development model” in the making. Boito Jr. (2012) considers neodevelopmen-talism the developmentalism that is possible within the neoliberal capitalist model for the periphery. Arcary (2011: 24) characterizes the Lula government as a “reforming government that produced no reforms, or very few of them.” For Singer (2012: 21–22), “Lula took advantage of the wave of worldwide expansion and chose a middle path between the neoliberalism of the previous decade . . . and the radical reforms that were listed in the PT’s program. . . . [a] reform program that was weak enough not to cause conflict.” In other words, this was a “program of superficial and conservative reforms—reforms that could even reproduce the neoliberal model of capitalism” (Galvão, Boito, and Marcelino, 2011: 154).

I would like to highlight two issues: First, although neoliberalism has been weakened, its ideology is still with us. After all, fiscal austerity, rigor, labor mar-ket flexibilization, and a restructuring of social security are ideas contained in the political programs of a number of countries, including Brazil. In fact, although the Lula government talked about defending workers’ rights, it slowed down but never interrupted the process, begun in the 1990s, of making labor law more flexible. Thus, it never stopped backing a labor law reform that accords with the neoliberalizing logic that prevailed during the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The difference is that the Lula reform was specifically directed toward such targets as young people just entering the labor market and suppliers of services who were one-person firms (the “juridical person”)—a form of labor relationship that can be a way of hiding employment behind a legal fiction, thus avoiding payment of the social security levy on employees of small and micro businesses. In contrast to the strategy of the Cardoso administration, which sought a wholesale reform of labor legislation, this strategy has made it difficult for workers and their unions to resist in that its individual measures do not affect all of them (Galvão, 2008). One can therefore identify a government toler-ance of precarious employment or what Krein and Biavaschi (2012: 1) call “con-tradictory movements in relation to social regulation.” This tolerance has continued under Dilma’s government, and this has revived the discussion of a reform of the Consolidation of Labor Laws, the predominance of negotiation




over legislation, and the possibility of creating new contracts (casual, on a hourly basis) designed to guarantee workers only a minimum of rights.

Second, this worn-out neoliberalism has its effects—albeit very diverse ones—on the union federations that can be seen in discussions of two key sub-jects: pensions and outsourcing. The elimination of the social security factor (part of the pension reform of the Cardoso government, which, seeking to encourage workers to delay retirement, cut the value of pensions by up to 40 percent) is among the concerns of all the union federations. Nevertheless, the CUT, the FS, the UGT, the NSCT, and the CGTB have signed agreements with the Dilma administration to replace this mechanism with the new 85/95 factor, which abolishes the 40 percent reduction when the age at which a person wants his or her pension to start and the number of years he or she has been making contributions add up to a minimum of 85 years for a woman or 95 for a man.23 And the government has not given up on the idea of further reform. Outsourcing is something that all the union federations came to criticize in the mid-2000s, viewing it as a potential cause of job insecurity. While the CONLUTAS and the Intersindical, for their part, wanted to see an end to outsourcing, the other union federations were divided on how it should be regulated. Basically this division of opinion depended on whether they thought that it was occurring all over the economy or affecting only intermediary activities and on what they considered was the responsibility of the businesses using outsourcing to the outsourced workers (whether they should be obliged to pay workers who had not been paid for their services or simply oversee whether the subcontractors had paid them).

Thus, although the economic and political context has changed since the 1990s, the labor movement is still having problems coping with the individual-istic outlook and desire for flexibility that characterized the neoliberal era, sup-porting measures that strengthen corporative interests and the management of the possible. One of the CUT’s most important member unions, looked upon as a “laboratory of employee relations,” the Sindicato dos Metalúrgicos do ABC (the Metalworkers’ Union of São Bernardo do Campo, [in Greater São Paulo]) presented the government in 2011 with a proposal for an agreement that would authorize unions to negotiate agreements with employers derogating the Consolidation of Labor Laws. This proposal was taken up by the CUT, which led to fierce criticism along the lines of “the CUT could do better,” while the Confederação dos Trabalhadores no Serviço Público Federal (Federal Civil Servants’ Federation—CONDSEF), a member union of the CUT, attacked it for putting job security at risk. The CONDSEF took part with the CONLUTAS and the Intersindical in a national forum of federal civil servants’ organizations attacking this proposal. Taking advantage of the condemnation of those involved in the so-called Mensalão scandal by the Supreme Court in 2013 these organizations also demand the elimination of the social security factor and the annulment of the social security reform of 2003.24

The currents of opinion in the unions opposing social partnership and the PT governments, despite their being in a minority, have created new opportu-nities to reinvigorate a position critical of neoliberalism and capitalism and to revive the debate on the autonomy of the labor movement in its relationship to government and management. This position has its limits, however. The




CONLUTAS’s criticism of the “government’s neoliberal policy” is too general and has no popular appeal, since it fails to take into account the differences between the PT administrations and those of Cardoso. What sort of neoliberalism are we talking about? How can Lula be regarded as the same as Cardoso when working and living conditions have changed? The CONLUTAS has proved inca-pable of responding to the perception shared by the majority of workers, even those belonging to its own member unions, who can see improvements in their material conditions. It recognizes the popularity of the PT governments, which at least until the demonstrations of June 2013 had been enjoying broad support from the working class, but it considers such support the product of an illusion (CONLUTAS, 2010). With regard to the need to reorganize the labor movement, it tends to overlook the role of its base: its criticism of its rival federations is cen-tered on their bureaucracies and the traditional behavior of their leaderships, absolving their rank and file of any responsibility in the process.

fInal consIDeratIons

Although they seem contradictory, the emphasis on social partnership and the priority given to defending immediate economic interests are complementary and are expressions of a change that has been going on since the 1990s with the rise of propositive unionism and its shift to the provision of services. During that decade, however, this kind of unionism did not prosper because of the impaired economic conditions and the adverse political situation. All of this changed with the ascent to office of the PT. The reinforcement of this kind of unionism has not, however, been without conflict or criticism. Thus, while the PT governments are creating the conditions for greater union involvement in social partnership, they are encouraging a reorganization of the labor movement. Splits in union organi-zation have their effect on the dominant union federations, which suffer from defections and internal strains, with the result that increased competition and quarrels about representation are forcing them to change their positions in the political debate—a debate in which neoliberalism, however discredited, is still present. In this sense, it is symptomatic—and paradoxical—that socialism and the class struggle, which were present only on the margins of the CUT’s reper-toire in the 1990s, are back in the vocabulary of the national leadership now that the more important currents on the left have broken away from the CUT to form rival federations.

Union reorganization expresses different conceptions and strategies in fighting for common objectives, but it does not hinder the unions from acting and campaigning together to resist the loss of some of their rights. Thus nei-ther organizational schisms nor the preference for acting in government insti-tutions nor the support of most of them for the PT means any renunciation of activism, protests, or strikes. The tendency of most unions toward negotia-tion and the choice of a reduced political perspective, restricted to defending economic and corporative interests, makes political and ideological resistance more difficult (limiting demands to what is realistically possible and accept-ing less from agreements). However, ignoring the changes in material condi-tions and the ideological impact that neoliberalism still produces diverts the




minority federations from workers’ concerns. This helps us understand the relatively marginal role of unions in the demonstrations of June 2013, but that is a question that can only be treated in another paper.

An analysis of the path of Brazilian unionism during the PT governments reveals that unionism is not alienated from politics: politics and the state influ-ence the unions, and the labor movement plays a political role—a role that varies with the aim of the organization in question. The action of the labor movement is, clearly, marked by constraints and difficulties, but at the same time it is full of potential, which reinforces the need to seek ways to interpret it.

notes

1. “Propositive” and “civic” are descriptors adopted by the labor movement during the 1990s to distinguish it from the combative one associated with the 1980s. These categories are close to what the literature calls “social partnership unionism” (Taylor and Mathers, 2002; Upchurch, 2009), which assumes negotiation, readiness to talk and make concessions, and the idea that it is possible to reach consensus and, as a result, come to an agreement with the state and the employ-ers. Going beyond this readiness for dialogue and negotiation, “civic” unionism introduces a further dimension to partnership: the provision of services to workers.

2. Although the defense of immediate economic interests is the main task of the unions, the history of the labor movement shows that they are not necessarily limited to performing this role. In this sense, there is no gap between the economic struggle and the political one; unions can intervene in politics in furtherance of the various projects they support (Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick, 2010; Mouriaux, 2006).

3. It is therefore different from the European social democracy of the immediate post–World War II era, which promoted widespread reform in the name of social justice—commitment to the welfare of the citizenry and the defense of its universal rights. In that context, the unions adopted an outlook that went beyond strictly economic and corporative interests, an outlook that nowa-days is much harder to find.

4. When I refer to the labor movement in a general way, I have in mind the majority of its top organizations, the federations, which basically support the PT governments. I will emphasize the role of the CUT because it is the chief shaper of the union policy that has dominated the period of the PT administrations.

5. Neocorporativism is a form of organization and representation of interests marked by the social partnership that characterized the social democratic governments in Europe just after World War II. In the case of Brazil, however, the neocorporative arrangements preserve the main characteristics of the state-sponsored unions of the 1930s—the monopoly of represen-tation and the compulsory deduction of union dues by the state. The reason the literature in Brazil continues to call this structure “corporatist” is the intervention of the state in the orga-nization of unions. The use of this expression may seem anachronistic, since, after all, we now live under a politically democratic regime. Another difficulty comes from the fact that I use it here also in a second sense, to refer to the defense of immediate economic interests (what Gramsci calls “fraction egoism”).

6. The hypothesis of the co-optation of leaders and most social movements into serving the gov-ernment’s interests has also been developed by Coutinho (2010) on the basis of Gramsci’s concept of transformism. Co-optation and transformism are equally featured in Antunes’s (2011) argument.

7. For a discussion of neodevelopmentalism and its departures from and continuities with the economic policy of the PT, see Novelli (2011).

8. Some authors argue that “unionism has largely lost the status of political protagonist” and that “despite a limited recovery of the initiative and a certain presence on the political scene . . . it has not managed to determine the direction of the political debate as before” (Araújo and Oliveira, 2011: 110). It seems to me, however, that even before the PT rose to power the unions did not determine the direction of the political debate. The difference is that in the 1980s the CUT did not limit its criticism to specific, narrow questions of government action and was opposed to entering




into social pacts. Reforms then were achieved by organizing and mobilizing the workers—that is, by the pressure of the masses—and not by filling institutional posts or by anything that could be regarded as class collaboration. Now, with the rise of propositive and “civic” unionism, labor’s demands have come to incorporate the argument of the inevitable restructuring of production, globalization, etc., and are limited to what is “viable” or “necessary,” which limits in advance how far it can go with the reforms it is demanding.

9. This proposal was already part of union demands when the Constituent Assembly was voting on the Constitution of 1988, which included the 44-hour workweek. Legislative action to implement it is something the CUT has been demanding since the first year of the Lula presidency, in 2003, with the subsequent support of the other union federations.

10. These “chambers”—agreements based on tax reductions, freezing of wage rates, and con-cessions about keeping up the level of employment—are characteristic of collaborative, proposi-tive unionism and of the idea of social partnership promoted by the CUT. This experience has often been back on the CUT’s agenda ever since the start of the Lula administration, when it proposed a social pact to make it feasible to reduce interest rates and return to economic growth. During the Dilma government, the main demand along these lines has been for a collective agree-ment with the specific objective of authorizing unions to negotiate agreements derogating the Consolidation of Labor Laws.

11. Most Brazilian workers have never had bank accounts because of the instability of the labor market and the fact that so many jobs have been outside the formalities of legal, documented contracts.

12. This does not mean that there have been no demonstrations, but demonstrations have been episodic and have involved only a relatively small number of people. The biggest ones between 2004 and 2009 were the annual marches, which brought together between 20,000 and 50,000 work-ers—a very small number compared with the size of the labor market or even the number of union members (according to the IBGE, in 2009 there were 92 million employed, 17.7 percent of whom were unionized).

13. According to Coutinho (2010: 32), this is no real fight for hegemony at a time of “neoliberal counterreform”: “Politics cease to be viewed as an arena in which to fight for different concepts of society,” becoming instead a “mere administration of the status quo.” Stated differently, it is a form of politics that depoliticizes, since realism and pragmatism practically remove utopia from the political horizon.

14. Jardim (2008) demonstrates the growing interest of unions in pension funding, which has come to be regarded as a way to domesticate capitalism and promote social inclusion. She also discusses the CUT’s and the FS’s creation of union pension funds, arising from the regulation promoted by the social security reform of 2003. D’Araujo (2009: 76) shows that the participation of union members in Brazil’s three biggest pension funds (Previ, Petros, and Funcef) “has always been high and has grown significantly since the start of Lula’s presidency.”

15. Law 11,648 of 2008 establishes criteria for representation (such as having a membership that amounts to at least 7 percent of the country’s unionized workers and a minimum of 100 member unions) and ensures the remit of 10 percent of the compulsory union membership levy (paid by every worker, whether he or she is a member of the union or not) to the officially recognized union federation.

16. The law on recognition has contributed to the fragmentation of the top union federations, with the result that in 2014 Brazil has 13 rival federations. Besides those already mentioned, I will point to the Central Geral dos Trabalhadores do Brasil (General Workers’ Federation of Brazil—CGTB), a split from the CGT.

17. The government went so far as to issue a decree (No. 7,777 of 2012) calling for the replace-ment of striking federal civil servants with public service workers from state governments and municípios (local authorities at the county or city level).

18. The CONLUTAS is the organization that has offered the most systematic explanation of its differences from the federation that gave birth to it. The CTB does not express any great political or ideological differences from the CUT. Identifying the distinctive features of the Intersindical would require a more detailed analysis due to its own split.

19. These characteristics have somehow allowed the CONLUTAS to be labeled “social move-ment unionism,” a unionism that stresses striking and seeks to express not just its specific con-cerns but broader political demands such as forging links with other social movements (Turner




and Hurd, 2001). However, another term seems to me more appropriate for the highly militant and politicized type of unionism it represents: “radical unionism,” which is characterized by mobilization, recourse to strikes, and a strong leftist ideological opposition to both employers and government (Connolly and Darlington, 2012).

20. Such as the Bolsa Família program, the microcredit loan schemes, and the lending scheme for family farms.

21. Yearly growth in the gross domestic product went from 5.7 percent in 2004 to 3.2 percent in 2005, 4 percent in 2006, 6.1 percent in 2007, and 5.2 percent in 2008. Despite a decline to −0.3 per-cent in 2009, it returned to 7.5 percent in 2010 (IBGE, 2013).

22. Unemployment fell from 21.8 percent in 2003, Lula’s first year in office, to 14.1 percent in 2008 and continued falling despite the world economic crisis, reaching 11.5 percent in 2010 (its lowest index during Lula’s presidency). The percentage of informal employment in the first decade of the century declined from 47.7 percent to 43.4 percent (DIEESE, 2012: 169).

23. According to those who signed the agreement, the proposal “takes into account the need to preserve the system’s sustainability, not just end up with a formula for calculation.” (Centrais Sindicais, 2012, my italics). One must remember that the end of the social security factor was approved by both houses of Congress in 2010 but vetoed by Lula.

24. The campaign’s slogan is “Reform of purchased pensions must be done away with!”

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The Brazilian Labor Movement under PT Governments · 2018. 11. 19. · Fernando Henrique Cardoso...

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