Brazil’s new trade unionism
faces a basic paradox:
at the very peak of the CUT’s
ifluence in the broader political process,
n increasingly bureaucratic pragmatism
threatens the labor federation’s
effective workplace presence.
Brazil is no exception to the global restruc-
turing of production and the fragmenta-
tion of labor which that restructuring has
brought about. These processes are posing new
challenges to union power everywhere. Unlike
the situation in many other countries, however,
the trade-union movement in Brazil has been
able to grow in influence and expand despite an
economic environment that is unfriendly to
labor. Indeed the Brazilian experience runs
counter to an international trend of labor-union
decline, reflected in the widespread drop in
unionization rates.
The strength of unionism in Brazil is inextrica-
bly linked to the wider role that unions have
assumed in Brazilian society. Because of the
country’s ongoing political crisis and the conse-
quent weakness of the party system, trade unions
have gone beyond their own specific interests to
become effective social and political actors and,
in one case, to form a major political party. irn
Brazilian unions have not confined themselves to
wage demands or other narrowly defined labor a
matters. Rather, they have become involved in a
broad spectrum of issues including industrial
policy, company competitiveness, productivity,
the effects on workers of the shift to services,
social policy, and regional integration [see
“Labor and Mercosur,” p. 32].
The broad mass movement of the late 1970s and
early 1980s against the military dictatorship created two
major tools for labor organizing: the Unified Workers
Central (CUT) and the Workers Party (PT), both of
which went on to have a great impact on public life.
Workers’ calls for labor-union freedom along with their
protests against declining wages and workplace authori-
tarianism became a struggle not only for new workplace
rights, but for a more genuine citizenship.
Founded in 1983, the CUT-one of three labor fed-
erations in Brazil-was a product of the mass trade
unionism that had developed in the industrial region of
greater Sdo Paulo since 1978, especially among the
metalworkers of Sdo Bernardo do Campo. While its
main bases of support have remained there over the
past 12 years, the CUT has managed to grow very
rapidly, greatly expanding its social and political influ-
ence in the process. Today, the CUT is emblematic of
the country’s “new unionism.”
Iram Jacome Rodrigues is a sociologist and professor in the
Department of Economics at the University of Sao Paulo. He is
the author of Comissao de Fabrica e Trabalhadores na Industria
(Sio Paulo: Cortez/Fase, 1990). Translated from the Portuguese
by Phillip Berryman.
The CUT:
Jew Unionism
at a
Crossroads
Union activity in Sdo Bernardo do Campo was also
the cradle of the Workers Party, the CUT’s sister orga-
nization. After 1978, opposition to the existing author-
itarian union structure merged with broad-based resis-
tance to the military regime. This opposition began to
appear in fits and starts as early as the late 1960s
among such groups as the Metalworkers Opposition
Movement in Sdo Paulo (MOSMSP). Luis Inicio
“Lula” da Silva was elected president of the Metal-
workers Union in Sgo Bernardo do Campo in 1975.
He was soon to become the labor movement’s most
effective spokesperson. In November, 1989, he ran for
president of Brazil, receiving 39% of the vote in a
runoff against Fernando Collor de Mello, the eventual
victor. In the October general elections last year,
although Lula once again lost, the PT elected two gov-
ernors, Vitor Buaiz in Espirito Santo and Cristovam
Buarque in Brasilia, along with a significant number
of state and federal deputies.
entirely paralyzed, was confined to small-scale,
largely invisible, local activity in certain sectors
of the labor movement. Between 1974 and 1978, slow-
NACI3A REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30REPORT ON BRAZIL
S;o Bernardo metalworkers on strike in 1991, protesting the lay-of
1,200 Ford factory workers.
downs and stoppages occurred, but were usually con-
fined to a single shop. The iron boot of the military dic-
tatorship prevented mass resistance. The traditional
trade-union structure was corporatist and authoritarian.]
Union leaders-the so-called “pelegos” (collabora-
tors)-had close ties to government and management.
Starting in the mid-1970s, workers awakened from a
long political dormancy and began to express opposi-
tion to the military regime’s economic policies, which
were squeezing the wages of the poor and the middle class. Workers began to retake the initiative in rela-
tions with the state and management. A wave of strikes broke out in 1978, first in Sdo Bernardo do Campo before spreading throughout the country. That
same year, the Sdo Bernardo metalworkers held their
first congress where they defined the main program-
matic principles for union activity: collective bargain-
ing, freedom for unions, and a basic labor law contain-
ing their fundamental rights. 2
Proponents of the “new unionism” denounced the
existing labor-union structure, advocating free negoti- ations between management and labor without gov- ernment interference. All the while, they continued to
construct a different model of trade unionism by doing
VOL XXVIII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1995
on-the-ground grassroots organizing in an
effort to strengthen unions at the factory level.
In the Brazilian transition to democracy, the
labor movement thus emerged as a key political
actor. The large corporatist labor unions were
run like “businesses,” and besides their labor
and political muscle, had considerable fiscal
resources. Thus when they began to reorganize, unions were able to finance congresses, semi-
nars, leadership training courses, trips around
the country to build contacts between labor-
union members, and so forth. 3 This social
movement, which over time became a political
movement, gave the working class a way to
become involved in public affairs. This is the
context out of which the CUT emerged to take
such a prominent role in the Brazilian labor
scene.
Three currents came together in the forma-
tion of the CUT: the traditional left, “indepen-
dent” unionism, and church-based activism. 3
The first current was made up of trade-union
activists who belonged to socialist political
parties. In the early 1970s, these leftist activists
took stock of their militant past and tried to
reach out to the “masses”-either through
organizing in poor neighborhoods, or by taking
jobs in factories. By the early 1980s, these left-
wing activists continued to be active in the f of labor movement in small everyday battles both
in factories in the country’s major industrial
centers-most notably in the South and Southeast-
and in rural regions such as the North and Northeast.
They were, however, scattered, often out of contact
with their parties, or at odds with them.
Those in the second major current of the new labor
activity called themselves “independents.” This cur-
rent reflected the new profile of the working class, which was a product of the economic and social
changes through which the country had passed during
the dictatorship. It was led by young workers, many of
them migrants from poorer areas, particularly the
Northeast. They were first-generation industrial work-
ers who shared neither ties to the traditional left nor
the nationalistic ideological vision of the pre-1964
populist trade unionism. This strain of unionism was
largely patterned on the metalworkers union in Sao
Bernardo do Campo. Gradually throughout the coun-
try, these new “independent” leaders came to fill the
vacuum in the traditional union apparatus.
Both of these currents maintained a close relationship
with the progressive sector of the Catholic Church. The
Church, closely woven into the country’s social fabric, built a movement of Christian base communities
(comunidades eclesiais de base or CEBs) throughout
31
0
4REPORT ON BRAZIL
the country. In the early 1980s, there were about 80
thousand base communities, involving approximately
two million “believing and oppressed” people. These
CEBs became a channel for the expression of a broad
collective sentiment of social revolt and critique of the
existing political order. The CEBs, rooted in the every-
day practice of the people, organized groups of people
who demanded their basic rights as citizens. As a cata-
lyst of popular aspirations, these Catholic movements
formed one of the pillars of the reorganization of the
labor movement. 4 They influenced labor activism by
speaking of the dignity of the worker-that is, seeing
the worker not simply as a tool for creating wealth, but
as a person endowed with certain rights.
rowing out of the reorganization of the labor
movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
the creation of the CUT represented the fulfill-
ment of one of the Brazilian labor movement’s long-
held aspirations. 5 Since its founding in 1983, the CUT
has grown significantly. In 1984, the CUT held its first
congress with 5,000 delegates. The second congress,
two years later, was attended by 5,564 delegates,
whose organizations represented 12 million workers at
the grassroots (Unions in Brazil represent all of the
workers in their jurisdiction, regardless of whether
they are dues-paying union members.)
By April, 1993, 1,878 unions were counted as CUT
affiliates, representing sixteen and a half million work-
ers. Of the five and a half million rural workers, over
600 thousand were union members. Of the 11 million
urban workers, 3 million-about 25%-were union
members. 6 By the Fifth Congress, in May, 1994, the
CUT had approximately 2,300 affiliates, which repre-
sented around 18 million workers at the grassroots. 7
From the wave of strikes in 1978 up to the birth of
the CUT in 1983, labor organizing proceeded fever-
ishly. Between 1983 and the Third National Congress
in 1988, the CUT successfully built an organized labor
militancy. During those five years, the CUT built from
within and asserted itself toward the outside. This
movement-style, liberating, socialist, conflictive peri-
od-called the organization’s “heroic” phase-ended
with that Congress.
The Third Congress marked the beginning of a shift
in the vision of the CUT from a movement to an orga-
nization. From that point on, the federation began to
adopt a vertical, administrative structure, which was
complex and, in that sense, bureaucratic. This restruc-
turing amounted to the construction of a rational
“business-style” union. The fourth and fifth congress-
es, in 1991 and 1994 respectively, continued to reflect
the shift within the CUT from a more confrontational
stance toward a new willingness to negotiate.
The 1988 Third Congress formalized changes that
were already underway within CUT trade unionism.
Through amendments to the organization’s by-laws,
labor-union council delegates were given priority over
grassroots representatives, and the number of repre-
sentatives elected to the CUT congress was changed to
reflect the number of affiliated unions and not the cat-
egories of workers represented. This resulted in a
decline in the proportion of congressional delegates
who came out of the trade-union opposition of the
1970s-generally the more left-leaning part of the
CUT. In addition, the Congress decided that partici-
pants in future national congresses were to be elected
in state congresses. This, in effect, was a “funnelling”
process of the representation of the workers, since in
practice it prevented a grassroots worker not repre-
sented in any of the CUT’s internal tendencies from
being elected to the national congress. Lastly, the
Third Congress decided to hold congresses every three
years instead of every two. The leftist tendencies
within the federation regarded these moves as a blow
to the internal democracy of the CUT.
The upshot was the creation of what has been called
a “democracy of tendencies,” which has left many of
VOL XXVIII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1995 33REPORT ON BRAZIL
CUT president Vicentinho addresses a metalworkers rally in Sio Pau
those tendencies unhappy. Many leftists, for example,
feel that the ordinary non-militant worker no longer
has a role in the organization. This “democracy of ten-
dencies,” they argue, contradicts the democratic set of
ideas championed by the new unionism. For others–
primarily CUT moderates who are more narrowly
focused on labor issues-the political skirmishing
among the tendencies reflects an excessive politiciza-
tion. They fear that this discord could eventually lead
to the loss of the CUT’s unique trade-union identity.
t the Fifth National CUT Congress in May,
1994, a 25-member National Executive Board
was elected. It was made up of one delegate
from the rural sector, seven delegates from the indus-
trial sector (three of them metalworkers), five bank
workers (all from government banks), three officials
from government-owned companies, and nine govern-
ment employees. Seventeen of the board members are
men, and eight are women. The most striking fact in
the governing board’s composition is the overwhelm-
ing presence of state employees, who make up practi-
cally 70%. This predominance may-aside from the
merits of the case-have something to do with the
labor federation’s considerable resistance to the idea
of privatization and the shrinking of the state appara-
tus. Even though rural workers constitute more than a
third of workers at the CUT grassroots (approximately
6.5 million out of 18 million), this sector is practically
absent from the CUT’s executive board, and thus
absent from the prism of internal democracy.
Nevertheless, the Sdo Bernardo do Campo metal-
workers continue to have the most authority and
legitimacy within the CUT. They represent the
majority tendency within the organization, called the
“Labor Articulation.” This tendency’s dominance is
reflected in the organization’s presidency. From its
foundation in 1983 until May, 1994, the
CUT president was Jair Meneguelli, a met-
alworker at the Ford Factory in Sdo
Bernardo do Campo, and former president
of the Metalworkers Union in Sdo Bernar-
do do Campo and Diadema. He resigned
after being elected a congressional repre-
sentative for Sio Paulo in the October
1994 general election. Meneguelli was
replaced by Vicente Paulo “Vicentinho” da
Silva, another leader from Sio Bernardo
do Campo.
Equally notable, the CUT leadership is
made up primarily of middle-class workers.
Almost 60% of the delegates to the 1994
congress, for example, were university
lo. graduates, in a country where 32 million
people-more than 20% of the Brazilian
population-are illiterate. The current process is thus
one of deep institutionalization, and hence of greater
professionalization, impersonality, and bureaucratiza-
tion within the CUT. 8 It also reflects the over-repre-
sentation of middle sectors within the organization,
and hence a growing gap between the grassroots and
leadership.
The new trade unionism has thus come face to face
with a basic paradox: at the very peak of its influence
in the broader political process, it may be losing
its effective workplace presence. If CUT unionism
fails to become more broadly organized within compa-
nies, its more general representative bodies-the trade
unions and the CUT itself-will weaken since they
will be removed from the everyday activity of workers.
The only way to strengthen the union movement is
to maintain an organized broad base of support in
workplaces. This requires a certain degree of mili-
tance. Despite the CUT’s militance at various points
in its history, the dominant forces within the organiza-
tion today are increasingly seeking compromise and
negotiation. The CUT has moved from a rather radical
conception of trade unionism, starting with the strikes
in 1978 and the harsh critique of the traditional labor-
union structure at the heart of the new unionism, to a
more pragmatic conception.
The challenge faced by the Brazilian trade-union
movement is no different than that faced by its sister
movements around the world: to maintain its strength
in the face of the relentless attack from increasingly
mobile international capital. From time to time, this
may require a stance of compromise and accommoda-
tion, but no trade-union movement can survive the
abandonment of workers at the grassroots. The CUT
still has the loyalty of those workers but, at the peak of
its strength, dramatic tensions are present at the heart
of the organization.
The CUT
1. The corporative labor union model developed in the 1930s,
which-despite some changes introduced in the 1988 Constitu-
tion-still ties trade unions to the state, is based on the follow-
ing elements: a) monopoly of representation granted by the
state; b) the single union: in a particular territory, only one union
from a particular category, such as metalworkers, may represent
those workers; c) the so-called union tax: an obligatory fee col-
lected from all workers, unionized and non-unionized, equiva-
lent to one day of work a year; and d) the legal power of the
labor court system.
2. Ricardo Antunes, A Rebeldia do Trabalho (Sho Paulo: Editora
Unicamp/Ensaio, 1988), p. 17.
3. Le6ncio Martins Rodrigues analyzes this process, its various
stages, and the more general reasons for it in “As tendencias
politicas na formacao das centrais sindicais,” in Armando Boito
Junior, O Sindicalismo Brasileiro nos Anos 80 (Sao Paulo: Paz e
Terra, 1991). See also Eder Sader, Quando Novos Personagems
Entraram em Cena (Sao Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1988).
4. See Heloisa de Souza Martins, “Igreja e Movimento Operario no
ABC (1954-1975),” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Social Sci-
ence of the Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sci-
ences of the University of Sao Paulo, 1986 (mimeo).
5. See Le6ncio Martins Rodrigues, CUT: os militantes e a ideologia
(Sao Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1990), especially Chapter 1, “A forma-
cao da CUT,” pp. 5-30.
6. Data from the CUT general secretariat, April 13, 1993.
7. See Adriana Lopez and Alvaro Comin, “Delegados ao CONCUT:
um perfil,” De Fato, Year 2, No. 4 (Sao Paulo) July-September,
1994.
8. Iram JAcome Rodrigues, “Perspectivas do sindicalismo no Brasil;
o caso da CUT,” in Eli Diniz, Jose S6rgio Leite Lopez and Regi-
naldo Prandi (eds.) O Brasil no Rastro da Crise (Sao Paulo:
ANPOCS/HUCITEC/IPEA, 1994), p. 40.
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