[P2P-F] Fwd: [Networkedlabour] Fwd: [WSF-Discuss] Brazil: Workers against the Workers Party?

Sat May 17 00:18:00 CEST 2014

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From: Orsan Senalp <orsan1234 at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, May 16, 2014 at 2:00 PM
Subject: [Networkedlabour] Fwd: [WSF-Discuss] Brazil: Workers against the
Workers Party?
To: networkedlabour at lists.contrast.org

Via Peter..

Begin forwarded message:

*From:* peter waterman <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com>
*Date:* 16 mei 2014 19:59:28 CEST
*To:* CRITICAL-LABOUR-STUDIES at jiscmail.ac.uk, WSFDiscuss List <
WorldSocialForum-Discuss at openspaceforum.net>
*Subject:* *[WSF-Discuss] Brazil: Workers against the Workers Party?*
*Reply-To:* peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com, Discussion list about the WSF <
worldsocialforum-discuss at openspaceforum.net>

  [image: A civil police officer detain young suspects after a store was
looted during a police strike in Recife, May 15, 2014. Road blocks and
marches hit Brazilian cities on Thursday as disparate groups criticized
spending on the upcoming World Cup soccer tournament and sought to revive a
call for better public services that swept the country last June. (IGO
BIONE/JC IMAGEM/REUTERS)]
 In Brazil, strike season kicks off as World Cup nears

Stephanie Nolen <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/stephanie-nolen>

RIO DE JANEIRO — The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, May. 16 2014, 6:00 AM EDT

Last updated Friday, May. 16 2014, 10:35 AM EDT
   6 comments<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/brazil-workers-get-their-moment-of-maximum-leverage/article18710222/comments/>

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   - Print <http://license.icopyright.net/g2/3.8425?icx_id=18710222> /
   License <http://license.icopyright.net/3.8425?icx_id=18710222>
   - AA<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/brazil-workers-get-their-moment-of-maximum-leverage/article18710222/#>

   The firefighters in Recife are on strike. The bus drivers, civil
engineers, bank security guards and school support workers of Rio have
walked off the job. The teachers of Sao Paulo are picketing and the train
workers are marching. Police in Pernambuco are off the job. So are City
Hall employees in Belo Horizonte. Nationwide, employees of the public
pension fund and museum employees are striking; internationally, the staff
of embassies and consulates.
 More Related to this Story

   -

    No major surprises as Scolari names Brazil World Cup squad
   <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/soccer/no-major-surprises-as-scolari-names-brazil-world-cup-squad/article18508445/>
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    Oil giant Petrobras: Brazil’s broken backbone
   <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/latin-american-business/from-favela-to-petrobras-president/article18628326/>
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    Public focus on Petrobras' scandals ignores its profitability
   <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/public-focus-on-petrobras-scandals-not-profitability/article18626971/>

  [image: FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke says hosting the World Cup
is always in the interest of the host country and FIFA is not the cause for
any possible demonstrations in Brazil this summer.]
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/sports-video/video-fifa-secretary-general-defends-spending-at-world-cup/article18614703/>
SOCCER Video: FIFA Secretary General defends spending at World
Cup<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/sports-video/video-fifa-secretary-general-defends-spending-at-world-cup/article18614703/>
 [image: FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke visits construction site of
delayed Sao Paulo World Cup stadium and confirms stadium will be ready for
June opener.] <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/sports-video/video-fifa-says-world-cup-stadium-in-sao-paulo-will-be-ready-for-opener/article18099394/>
Soccer Video: FIFA says World Cup stadium in Sao Paulo will be ready for
opener<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/sports-video/video-fifa-says-world-cup-stadium-in-sao-paulo-will-be-ready-for-opener/article18099394/>

In the words of a blaring headline in the Rio newspaper O Globo this week:
Strike Season Has Arrived. There are, at a conservative estimate, 60
separate labour actions under way now in Brazil, and dozens more unions
(including federal police, airport workers and pilots) have threatened to
stop work in the next few days.

It is also, of course, FIFA World Cup season. One of the sporting world’s
great festivals begins in Brazil in less than a month, and the country’s
workers are seizing a moment of powerful leverage.

“They are taking advantage of the World Cup because the government is very
worried about the image of Brazil – the government doesn’t want to see more
bad news about Brazil, or you will have people cancelling their plans to
come,” said Hélio Zylberstajn, a professor of industrial relations at the
University of Sao Paulo.

Many of the strikers – such as bus and train workers – negotiate their
collective agreements with individual municipalities “so probably Dilma is
calling all the mayors saying, ‘For God’s sake, please give them some money
and stop the strike,’” he said, referring to President Dilma Rousseff, whom
many Brazilians call by her first name.

The strikes already under way are causing considerable disruption. In Rio,
for example, the lack of buses left much of the city paralyzed for two days
this week, many schools are shut and most bank branches have not been
operating for weeks due to the lack of security guards.

The current strikes are perhaps borrowing a leaf from the book of Rio’s
trash collectors, who went on strike in March during Carnaval – an event
that brings even more tourists into the city than the Cup will.

The streets soon flooded with waves of empty plastic water bottles and beer
cans. In days, the city administration caved and gave the workers a
37-per-cent wage increase (and doubled their lunch budget.)

“It’s not that industrial conflict is deepening – it’s a strategic
decision,” Prof. Zylberstajn said. “The workers are not dumb. They are
using their bargaining power.”

Miguel Torres, president of Forca Sindical, one of the largest unions in
Brazil, insists the strikes aren’t because of the Cup, but because the
dramatic slowdown in the economy is leaving workers in trouble.

Four hundred unions, with four million members, are currently renegotiating
wage agreements, he said, adding: “And the negotiations are not going very
well.” Employers are not offering rises in wages that even keep pace with
inflation, he said. “Of course we are going to take advantage of the
international publicity.”

Prof. Zylberstajn said it is unlikely the economy can sustain the kind of
wage demands workers are making – and may get, since the government is
under pressure to quell the wave of strikes.

“It’s too much,” he said. “For more than six years, agreements have
provided workers with significant real increases. … We are almost at full
employment so workers have a lot of bargaining power, but at the same time
the economy is doing very badly – so it’s just a matter of time before an
unemployment increases and we see a lot of dismissals.” The problem is
equally grave for public and private sector workers, he said.

Brazil’s astoundingly complex labour laws are not helping matters. The laws
date from the 1930s, said Ana Virginia Morera Gomes – who teaches the
subject at the University of Fortaleza – and reflects the influence of the
then-authoritarian state which, in the name of protecting workers,
essentially removed their autonomy.

There is almost no negotiating in contracts here, because the law defines
almost every aspect of the terms of employment. This removes the need for
collective bargaining; trade unions are state-controlled as well and and
tend to have very low actual support from their membership, who are
compelled to join.

These days, many workers feel their union leadership is corrupt – too close
to employers; union leaders unilaterally accept or reject wage offers,
without needing a membership vote. “It’s a very unique case – the unions
themselves [in some cases] oppose labour reform that would allow for
greater freedom of association,” Prof. Gomes said.

That, columnist Elio Gaspari argued this week, is driving workers to more
radical action. Bus drivers in Rio, for example, have set fire to more than
500 buses, in a labour action that is only a week old, but more hostile
than anything seen in the past. “Having unions run by your friends doesn’t
guarantee [an employer] peace,” he wrote in Folha de Sao Paulo*.*

The Cup leverage is being used by workers even outside Brazil. Employees of
LAN-TAM, Latin America’s dominant airline network, across the continent are
threatening to strike.

“The last thing Ms. Rousseff wants is a pilot strike,” said Prof.
Zylberstajn. “And Brazilian embassies and consulates in 17 cities are on
strike – if you need a visa, you can’t get one right now.” At least not
quickly – a few workers in each site remain on the job.

But the government’s chief preoccupation is a strike by police during the
World Cup. During a three-day police strike in the city of Salvador in
April, 39 people were killed, 60 cars were stolen and there were countless
other robberies. (The city’s usual homicide rate is five a day.) There is
widespread expectation in Brazil that protesters of all stripes will take
to the streets to capitalize on the international attention during the Cup
(more than 50 demonstrations are scheduled already), and the government is
determined to keep those protests from disrupting the event.

A superior court here ruled on Tuesday that federal police cannot strike
during the Cup, but police can still appeal that decision.

“I think it’s going to get worse,” predicted Prof. Gomes. “People imagined
that when Brazil had the World Cup it would be a big party – they never
imagined people would be so aware of expectations and so critical.”

-- 

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