Roberto Véras

(text not edited)

In September of 1999, the Brazilian union federations CUT (Central Única dos Trabalhadores) and Força Sindical started a "strike festival" among metalworkers, aimed at pressuring entrepreneurs into accepting the adoption of a national collective contract for the automobile sector. The union federations argued that, in a context of restructuring and decentralization of the automobile industry in the country, differences in wages and working conditions among the states contributed to the loss of jobs in the regions where the industry has historically been concentrated. At the same time, in the regions where the new factories are established, these differences lead to the use of public resources by companies without a counterpart in the creation of a proportionate number of jobs with the same standards of remuneration and social benefits.

The "strike festival" consisted in a strategy of one-day strikes carried out in a rotation system in each of the six states where automobile parts and/or assembly plants are currently located. The campaign took place in an adverse context for both workers and unions as a result of the mode of international insertion of the country into the process of globalization.

The automobile sector is one of the most important to the country's economy (it represents about 5% of the GNP); it is also here that the historical basis of both CUT and FS are to be found. These two aspects, by themselves, give relevance to any events that involve the sector, and the unprecedented fact that the campaign of strikes was jointly carried out by the two federations gives it added significance.

My purpose here is to problematize the possibilities of the struggle for a national contract for the automobile sector, as well as its meanings in the current moment of Brazilian unionism, at a time when deep social changes are underway.

The automobile industry, which was developed in Brazil especially during the 1950s, concentrated at first almost exclusively in the State of São Paulo, in the ABC Region. In addition to GM, Ford, and FNM—Fábrica Nacional de Motores (National Motor Factory), other factories arrived at this time: VW, Simca, Willys, Mercedes-Benz, Scania, and Toyota. In the 1970s, during the period of the so-called "Brazilian miracle," the sector recorded high levels of growth, reaching an annual average of 1 million units. During the mid-1970s, a process of decentralization in the sector began, with the establishment of new plants in Betim, Minas Gerais (Fiat), in the interior of the State of São Paulo (VW and Ford in Taubaté; GM in São José dos Campos; Mercedes-Benz in Campinas), and in Curitiba, Paraná (Volvo). As a result, the ABC share in the national production of vehicles dropped from 75%, in 1975, to 56%, in 1980. With the recession of the early 1980s, production levels slipped 30% on average, only bouncing back to the previous level in 1986, and remaining stable until 1992. It was only then, with the agreements struck under the auspices of the Automotive Sectorial Chamber (Câmara Setorial Automotiva), that the sector witnessed a new boom. From 1992 to 1997, production soared to 2 million vehicles (ranking 10th in the world). During the ensuing years, production again slipped, down to 1.2 million in 1999.

The rise in the production capacity of the auto sector occurred side by side with a series of changes in production standards, initiated in the 1980s with the establishment of Quality Control Circles (Círculos de Controle de Qualidade). But it was only in the 1990s, in particular with the liberalization of trade, that such processes gained momentum, with the introduction of new techniques in the management of production and labor (subcontracting, just-in-time supply, kaban, kaizen, production cells, team work, multi-functional workers, downsizing of hierarchical ranks). As a result, the sector’s productivity rose from 8 units per worker, up to 1992, to somewhere around 18 in 1996. Nevertheless, such changes have led to systematic job losses and to an open process of precarization of work contracts. Throughout the 1990s, the number of workers employed in assembly plants remained at around 100,000, despite the expansion that the sector went through (in the mid-1980s, it had reached 130,000). In recent years this level has been decreasing, having reached 84,000 workers in 1999. Workers suffered the most in the auto parts segment, which underwent a sharp process of concentration and denationalization.

The automobile sector’s performance in the second half of the 1990s was directly related to the advent of the so-called "fiscal war." In 1995, the federal administration established a "new automotive regime," creating a number of fiscal incentives designed to attract new investments in the country. Thereafter ensued a ferocious dispute involving state and municipal administrations, which started offering tax, credit, and infrastructure advantages to companies interested in getting established in their areas. This caused a new burst of expansion and decentralization, with new factories being launched: VW in Resende, Rio de Janeiro, in 1996, and in São Carlos, São Paulo, in 1997; Renault, Chrysler, and Audi/VW in São José dos Pinhais, Paraná, in 1998; Mercedes-Benz in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, in 1998; and GM in Gravataí, Rio Grande do Sul, in 2000 (others are under construction, such as Ford’s in Bahia). All of this constitutes a new situation for union action in the metalworking sector, especially in the ABC region.

The emergence of the so-called "new unionism," in the late 70’s, had as its epicenter the ABC region and the São Bernardo do Campo and Santo André Metalworkers Unions. At the time, given the unique profile of the auto sector workers concentrated there in comparison with other regions and other sectors of the Brazilian economy, the idea arose that this segment constituted a "labor aristocracy," whose union practices tended to resemble the North-American type of "business unionism" (Almeida, 1975). Both unionist discourse (Lula, 1982) and studies made thereafter (Humprey, 1982; Moisés, 1982; Antunes, 1988; Sader, 1988, among others) tended, instead, to see it as a type of independent and class unionism. And, indeed, it would give rise to the Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores) in 1980 and to CUT in 1983.

The "new unionism" emerged against the backdrop of the official union structure, which had been established during the period of the Estado Novo (1930s and 40s), and appropriated, in the 1960s and 70s, by the military regime. Under the banner of "union freedom and autonomy," it challenged, at the time, the "Strike Law" (which restricted the right to strike), the power of the Ministry of Labor over the unions, the union tax (charged mandatorily from every wage earner except public servants), the normative power of Labor Courts (which impeded free negotiations between workers and employers), and the atomized and vertical character of the union structure (organized by occupational category, and prohibiting inter-union forms of organization). However, if the "new unionism" was established as an "independent," "class," "grassroots," and "horizontal" movement, the federation CUT (heir to the "new unionism") opted for acting "from within" the official structure, perpetuating it to a certain extent (Boito Jr., 1991). On the other hand, the 1988 Constitution, even though it eliminated the instruments of state control over unions, maintained two of the pillars of the former structure: the mandatory tax and the monopoly on representation (guaranteed by the principle of "the single union," that is, one union per occupational category per territorial base).

As it consolidated itself in the political and unionist scenario of the country, CUT gradually assumed a "contractualist" orientation, not without facing enormous obstacles. In the first place, its option for the proposal of a National Collective Contract, as a central plank, as well as for the idea of CUT as a "union federation" and not as a "movement," did not occur without opposition from internal minority groups. On the other hand, the authoritarian and tutelary character of labor relations in Brazil has always hampered the development of a contractualist tradition like the one that developed in Europe in the post-war period under the "Fordist pact" (Bhir, 1998). Despite the country’s "redemocratization" and the growth of CUT, collective bargaining remained (with few exceptions) subject to the jurisdiction Labor Courts, and segmented by union and/or federation. Union federations, CUT included, were not able to establish themselves as nationwide contract negotiators.

In the 1990s, CUT developed this orientation, formulating a proposal for a Democratic System of Labor Relations, but new obstacles emerged. At the company level, production restructuring processes led to further decentralization of collective negotiations (Dieese, 1999). At the institutional level, government policies in the 1990s, in accordance with the "Washington consensus," contributed to an increasing flexibilization of labor rights, while initiating, at the same time, an attack on union action, under a discourse of free negotiation. Such a perspective views social rights and unionism as obstacles to the country's development, by preventing the free play of markets (Oliveira, 1998). The labor market entered into a restructuring process, whose most important features are structural unemployment and the growing precarization of work relations. CUT’s proposal became even more distant from the real (and more adverse) situation of the country’s labor relations. Added to this is the fact that, in 1992, a new unionist project arose, attuned to the neoliberal discourse and enjoying wide support from the government and the media: FS (Força Sindical), heir to what became known, in the late 1980s, as "result-driven unionism" (Cardoso, 1992).

Faced with this situation, and increasingly losing its power of mobilization, CUT unionism, which had been characterized in the 1980s by great mass mobilizations and by a conflictive posture, became more inclined towards "negotiation" and "proposition." The case of the ABC metalworkers has been emblematic in this respect, as they have been willing to negotiate the production restructuring processes underway, especially after the experience of the sectorial chambers. After their extinction, the "negotiated restructuring" strategy, as it came to be known, gradually acquired the form of negotiation by company, involving issues such as profit-sharing, hour banks, reduction of working hours, and voluntary resignation schemes; in this strategy, the struggle for job preservation, usually as a defensive attitude, became central. The current dilemma is that of maintaining the combative character of the union action vis-à-vis entrepreneurial threats of unemployment, which have been corroborated by the government’s anti-unionist stance. In general, the nature of the resulting agreements has heated the internal debate at CUT. Nevertheless, it is still possible to notice differences in the results of the negotiations carried out by the ABC metalworkers (CUT) and the São Paulo metalworkers (FS).

The ABC Metalworkers Union and CUT have been seeking to face current adversities through the diversification of their practices. They have expanded their action, for example, within public spaces responsible for the definition and execution of public policies on employment, vocational training, education, health, the environment, housing, social security, industrial policy, agricultural policy, etc. In general, these were spaces created in the 1988 Constitution, but only implemented in the beginning of the 1990s, with varied configurations (Pochmann et al., 1998). Besides the Sectorial Chambers (in 1992 and 1993), the most important on the union agenda are the following: the Worker's Support Fund Deliberative Council—Codefat (Conselho Deliberativo do Fundo de Amparo ao Trabalhador) and the State and Municipal Employment and Work Commissions (Comissões Estaduais e Municipais de Emprego e Trabalho); the Administrative Council of the Trust Fund for Years in Service (Conselho Administrativo do Fundo de Garantia por Tempo de Serviço—dedicated to the financing of housing policies); Health, Education, Children and Adolescents Councils, among others.

We should highlight the experience of the ABC Regional Chamber, established in 1997 as a non-state public forum with the aim of articulating a development policy for the region; it involved the State Administration, the 7 municipalities in the region, parliamentarians, and representatives from several civil society organizations, among which the ABC Metalworkers Union is prominent. The ABC Metalworkers Union and CUT have also been sponsoring other projects such as: a) in 1998, with the support of FS, the formulation of a National Program for the Renewal of the Vehicle Fleet (Programa Nacional de Renovação da Frota de Veículos), which proposes incentives for the exchange of over 15-year-old vehicles, thus seeking to expand the demand and to recuperate jobs in the sector (the fact that it has not yet been implemented is due the the government's reluctance); b) the development of public-funded vocational training and educational upgrading programs; c) in 1999, the creation of the public-funded Labor and Income Unit (Central de Trabalho e Renda), with its headquarters at ABC, to operate as a non-state public agency, managed by a tripartite board and geared towards the development of integrated job services (Paoli 2001); d) in 1999, the creation of CUT's Agency for Solidary Development (Agência de Desenvolvimento Solidário), through a partnership with the university network Unitrabalho and with Dieese (a research and consultancy organization that works with unions)—funded by international agencies, this organization aims at supporting work- and income-generation projects, and, in the medium term, at constituting a National System of Cooperative Credit (Sistema Nacional de Crédito Cooperativo), based on the principles of the "solidary economy" and on "sustainable development."

There have also been innovations in CUT's international action. Union practices in the Southern Cone, historically circumscribed to national boundaries (Wachendorfer, 1995), have been gaining an international dimension especially after the creation of Mercosur, in 1991, when common institutional spaces took form on the basis of similar and interconnected problems—trade liberalization, privatizations, unemployment, deregulation of labor relations. In 1987, the Coordinating Committee of the Union Federations of the Southern Cone (Coordenadora de Centrais Sindicais do Cone Sul) had already been created; within Mercosur, it has been concentrating on the Subgroup for Labor Relations, Employment, and Social Security (Subgrupo de Relações Trabalhistas, Emprego e Seguridade Social), which includes representatives of employers and unions. Priorities on the union agenda are the defense of employment and social and labor rights. With the possibility of the constitution of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the international challenges for union action have expanded, on the one hand because of its probable consequences for Latin-American economies, and on the other because of unions' need to define an increasingly joint action in spite of their many differences. In any case, international action is an increasingly pressing matter for CUT.

Throughout the 1990s, with the growth of unemployment, the intensification of the attacks on labor and social rights, the reduction of inflation levels, and the end of wage indexation, the issues of unemployment and social rights gained a place in CUT's agenda, taken up by the wage question in the 1980s. At the same time, there was a growing need to seek new alliances, at local, national, and even international levels. A decisive step in this direction was taken when CUT, in 1996, made the proposal for a National Conference for the Defense of the Earth, Employment, and Citizenship (Conferência Nacional em Defesa da Terra, do Emprego e da Cidadania), which gathered organizations and social movements with a critical position on the course of the country. The Conference, which took place in April 1997, approved the "Brasília Charter" (Carta de Brasília), condemning the government's authoritanian character and its neoliberal orientation, and established a permanent unit of articulation called the National Forum for the Defense of the Earth, Work, and Citizenship (Fórum Nacional em Defesa da Terra, Trabalho e Cidadania). Since then, the Forum has been organizing important public events at the national level: the National Day of Struggle for Employment and Social Rights (Jornada Nacional de Luta por Emprego e Direitos Sociais), in May 1998; the National Day of Struggle Against the Economic Policy of the Fernando Henriques Cardoso Administration and in Defense of Brazil (Dia Nacional de Luta Contra a Política Económica de FHC e em Defesa do Brasil), in March 1999; the 100,000 People March (Marcha dos 100 Mil), in August 1999 (the largest protest organized against the Fernando Henriques Cardoso Administration); the March for Education (Marcha pela Educação), in October 1999. New alliances—particularly with social movements, NGOs, and political parties opposed to neoliberal-inspired policies—have also been pursued at the international level, through participation in demonstrations such as the one in Seattle (at the WTO meeting, in 1999), in Washington (at the IMF meeting, in 2000), and in Quebec (at the FTAA meeting, in 2001); in the constitution of networks, such as the Continental Social Alliance (Aliança Social Continental); and in events such as the World Social Forum (Fórum Social Mundial). CUT's discourse has been increasingly incorporating the expression "citizen union" to designate (not without internal tensions), in an adverse context, a union practice of a more "propositive" character, that takes as its central issues the defense of employment and of social rights, that seeks to expand its action to institutional spaces and have a more direct influence on the formulation and execution of public social policies, that seeks to construct closer links with other organizations and social movements, at local (by focusing the question of "local government"), national (by discussing a "national project"), and international levels.

It is in this context that the proposal for a national collective contract is situated. This proposal had always been present in CUT's agenda, but its viability had always been remote from the real dynamic of labor relations in the country. For metalworkers, the moment that came closest to making the proposal viable was the experience of the Automotive Sectorial Chamber. During the second agreement in particular, in 1993, there was an expansion of workers' representation (besides SMABC, it came to include CNM, FS, and CGT [General Confederation of Workers—Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores]), as well as of the issues under negotiation—such as wage earnings and the maintenance of the employment level. The end of the sectorial chambers brought back decentralized collective bargaining.

Pressed by a situation in which the unions’ bargaining power (stronger unions included) increasingly depends on their national (and international) articulation, metalworkers unionism faced the imperative of seeking, in a joint effort, another platform for negotiating with entrepreneurs, or else face the continuing process of precarization of work relations, restricting even more their own prospects for survival.

For CUT, the transformation of CNM into a National Metalworkers Union (SNM—Sindicato Nacional dos Metalúrgicos) was also at stake. Realizing that the new scenario cannot be confronted by fragmented unions, the creation of the SNM was approved at CUT's Extraordinary Congress, in March 2000, after a proposal by Union Articulation, under the protests of minority forces which were absent from the meeting, thus creating an impasse still unresolved.

In August of 1999, CNM-CUT and the FS Metalworkers Federation handed over to the National Automakers Association (Anfavea—Associação Nacional de Fabricantes de Veículos Automotores) and the National Syndicate of the Auto Parts Industry (Sindipeças—Sindicato Nacional da Indústria de Autopeças) a petition with their demands, proposing the reduction of the working week to 36 hours; the adoption of national trade wages in assembly and parts plants, and the adoption of a unified minimum wage of R$800.00; a 10% minimum recovery of wage purchasing power; workers’ right to representation in the workplace and to unionization; the fight against the "fiscal war." The petition included a "safeguard clause," ensuring the best conditions as established in conventions and specific agreements made or to be made between workers’ and employers’ representatives. This petition not only had as its main purpose the institution of a national collective contract for the auto sector, but also represented a preliminary version of the items to be negotiated (CNM, 1999). But its objective was to call attention to the proposal of a national contract:

The unionists’ argument was that "vehicle assembly plants are the sole beneficiaries of these distortions, for the economy made with wage reduction is not handed over to consumers." The core of the problem lies in the effects of the "fiscal war," especially in those regions with an industrial and a unionist tradition, like São Paulo and the ABC: "If we achieve the same rights, such as a single minimum wage, we’ll be able to undermine one of the attractions the factories offer, and keep a larger number of jobs here in the ABC." In the case of the ABC region, the situation is even more dramatic:

On the other hand, it is the ABC workers that are expected to give the most support to the movement, which also requires that their political culture be shared with the workers of the new industrial areas: "We’re going to take our ability to mobilize and our experience in this kind of struggle wherever it is necessary." Anfavea, the National Automakers Association, has refused to negotiate the demands presented, particularly the proposal of a national collective contract. For this association, negotiations should take place within each company. According to their arguments, with such a proposal metalworkers were seeking to "export production costs in the ABC and São Paulo areas to other regions in the country." Confronted with the entrepreneurs' refusal, both federations decided to trigger a "strike festival," consisting of one strike per state per week, during the months of September and October.

The first took place on September 24, at the VW truck and bus factory in Resende (Rio de Janeiro). More than 10 buses with unionists from other States headed there. It was a total strike and there were no incidents. The following week, it was the turn of Minas Gerais, where there are two plants: an older one in Betim (Fiat), and a recent one in Juiz de Fora (Mercedes-Benz). The successful strike at Mercedes was the first to be staged in this new plant. As for Fiat, which has over 12,500 workers and hadn't had a strike in 15 years, on the day set for the strike (which had been changed at the last minute in order to forestall the reaction of the company), more than a thousand unionists faced a strong police force as well as hired security. The resulting confrontations, which had wide coverage in the media, caused 27 wounded, 2 demonstrators detained, and the suspension of 9 local union leaders.

On October 7, the "strike festival" arrived in São Paulo, home to some of the oldest auto and auto parts plants as well as to the great majority of the workforce in the sector. The strike, which extended to all units, was the peak of the movement, gaining prominence in the national media; notwithstanding, the entrepreneurs remained unmoved. In Paraná, the strike took place on October 20. The three major assembly plants in the State (VW/Audi, Renault, and Volvo), involving some 6,500 workers, and some auto parts plants, all new (except for Volvo), were completely paralyzed (for VW/Audi and Renault, these were their first strikes; for Volvo, this was the second strike in its 21 years in Brazil).

Both union federations jointly organized a special response to the episode at Fiat in Betim by preparing demonstrations in some cities around the country, as well as a campaign against the company ("nobody should buy the brand"). The rehiring of the unionists was considered the movement’s first victory against the company. In São Paulo, on October 28, unionists held a march to the company’s office, during which two Model 147 Fiats (pulled by two donkeys symbolizing the company’s board of directors, "who don’t talk because they’re dumb") were kicked to pieces by the participants. Unionists called for a boycott against "Fiat’s carts, made with slave labor," in reference to the fact that the company pays much lower wages than those companies based in São Paulo. At first, other strikes were planned for Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, but the weight of both States was thought to be too small for their outcomes to be influential.

The "festival" reached its peak with the metalworkers' wage campaigns in different States (including São Paulo), boosting them and giving them a strength never before seen, particularly in the new factories. Local negotiations focused on the proposal of a 10% wage raise. But, especially in the ABC assembly plants, besides the recovery of wage losses, the reduction of the working week was also included. In general terms, in the new plants, the victories included a rise in the minimum wage and in the annual profit-sharing bonus, and, in some of them, there were agreements on the establishment of shop steward committees. As for Fiat, besides having to go back on its decision to suspend 7 unionists, it granted workers a wage raise and acknowledged the Union’s right to organize membership campaigns inside the factory.

Following this, the two union federations assessed the strikes, highlighting their positive outcomes, and agreed on their continuation the following year. For CNM/CUT the two major gains were the unified and national character of the movement and the boost it gave to local wage campaigns. But the movement’s goals aimed farther ahead at achieving the national collective contract. However, it has not been easy to resume the campaign.

Up until March 2000, CNM was completely involved in the internal debate about the creation of a National Union. In spite of this, some initiatives were attempted. Both Federations, at an audience with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in early April, pushed again for the approval of the program for the renewal of the fleet. In the same month, in support of the program, a demonstration was held which involved a parading of cars that were at least 15 years old. On June 2, CNM called for a National Mobilization Day, resuming the struggle for the national collective contract and the reduction of the working week to 36 hours. Lightning strikes and demonstrations were staged in some assembly plants in the ABC region and in other States. In São Paulo, CNM held a demonstration outside the Sindipeças headquarters. On June 7 and 8, CUT organized a symbolic occupation of the building of the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp—Federação das Indústrias do Estado de São Paulo), where two-day vigils were carried out. Similar demonstrations also took place in Porto Alegre and Recife. On June 14, the São Paulo Metalworkers State Federation (Federação Estadual dos Metalúrgicos), a CUT affiliate, initiated a new round of demonstrations by region, involving primarily the auto parts plants (where the working week exceeds 40 hours). The campaign consisted in one-hour strikes, during which union leaders, in meetings held at the factories' gates, put to the vote the proposals of the national collective contract and the reduction of the working week.

During the second half of 2000, the articulation with FS was resumed in order to organize a Unified Wage Campaign, involving not only the metalworking sector, but also the banking and oil sectors, as well as some segments of the civil service. However, the episode rekindled the divergences between the two Federations, when FS unilaterally closed a deal accepting an average rate of 8% for wage raises, which CUT, refusing any rate below 10%, considered to be low.

Notwithstanding the positive impact of the "strike festival," both in the media and among unionists, the impasse around the proposal for the creation of a National Union and the oscillations in the relationship between CUT and FS have contributed to the fact that, until now, the campaign has not been resumed.

The struggle for a national collective contract for the automobile sector is part of an effort, particularly on the part of those sectors associated with CUT, to face the present adversity. It seeks to oppose an ever-growing asymmetry in the correlation of forces between workers and companies—especially transnational companies—and the open attack of neoliberal forces against social rights.

The struggle for a national collective contract is an attitude of "resistance." By proposing it as a "social contract," the movement reaffirms a historical reference of CUT unionism, while maintaining a critical position towards the authoritarian and—whatever is left of it—the tutelary character of labor relations in Brazil; but, at the same time, it opposes the consolidation of a new pattern of sociability, which in hegemonic discourse is referred to by the euphemism of "free negotiation," inspired in a new global paradigm, that of liberal and individualistic contractualization.

The sense of resistance of the aforementioned banner can also be related to its "national" character. It opposes not only the current decentralizing trend of collective bargaining and a practically nonexistent tradition of centralized collective bargaining in the country, but also the destitution of the State as social regulator. If we take into account that "globalization" requires, from countries such as Brazil, liberal and passive strategies for world insertion, which reduce their States to a basic condition of guardians of macroeconomic balances, a process of reinsertion on more sovereign bases on the part of these countries will certainly require, to a certain extent, the recovery of the idea of "national project," in which unionism will be urged to play a role. Within the Southern Cone, this process will necessarily require that the Mercosur project be reasserted and reoriented. It was this perception that led to a unanimous position of support for regional integration on the part of unions in the region, notwithstanding their political differences.

This brings another question to the fore: the centrality of the "national question" for union action might be, in the Brazilian case (and if so, in the Latin-American case), an indispensable element for its counterhegemonic assertion, and it can even contribute to the construction of a "new internationalism."

The "strike festival" had the merit of bringing the issue of the national collective contract to the debate at a time when the dynamics of labor relations in the country and in the region pointed in the opposite direction, but also at a moment when unionism was seeking to reorganize at national, regional, and world levels. However, we have to interrogate the possibilities of such a proposal going beyond its historical nuclei (mostly located in the ABC region), the automotive sector (the best organized within metalworking), and its ability to interact at some level in an international framework.

The "strike festival" constituted an unprecedented opportunity for union articulation at national level within a segment of the metalworking industry which has been undergoing an increasing decentralization. One of the immediate issues that arose was related to the participation of workers from greenfield plants, deemed to be areas without a union tradition:

On the other hand, there was the recognition that the strategy of unified action had an almost irresistible appeal (even in the case of Fiat, where a strong repressive scheme was mounted). However, this was an ephemeral contact, since it did not produce a more permanent dynamics of articulation.

A second issue concerned the movement's capacity to influence other sectors:

This is a question with some history in the union movement of the ABC region. It has always been a major reference for CUT's camp and, in the last decades, for the whole of Brazilian unionism. However, the unequal character of labor relations in the country (which has been increasing lately), combined with the differences in union traditions in each sector, has generated important obstacles to the universalization of the social and labor gains achieved by different segments—either the ABC metalworkers, the São Paulo bank workers, the oil workers, or others. This is the case of the struggle for the establishment of a national collective contract in the automobile sector: if and when it becomes effective, it won't be easy to extend such an achievement, even to other segments of the metalworking industry.

A third issue to consider concerns the international interactions that this movement produced. During the campaign, the International Metalworkers Federation sent its director, Peter Unterwegger, to Brazil. In an important interview given to the Folha de São Paulo, he talked about the interest of the International Metalworkers Federation in the case, as well as the possible forms of supporting it at that moment:

At the time, he compared the defense of the unification of labor conditions in Brazil to the position of his federation on the unification of labor conditions throughtout the world: "I believe that it is unjustifiable that a pressure against workers in Indonesia, for instance, can be turned into a competitive advantage for other countries."

But, beyond this level of international interaction (usually more formal than effective), the movement managed to take advantage of another situation that was made possible by an unprecedented agreement struck within the context of Mercosur, in March 1999, between, on one side, the ABC and the Taubaté Metalworkers Unions and the Argentinian SMATA (Mechanical and Related Workers of the Automotive Transportation Union), representing the workers of the VW plants in both countries, and, on the other side, the management of the company in Brazil and Argentina. This initiative is part of an international effort that aims at creating worldwide organizations for worker representation, and at establishing company agreements worldwide, especially in the automobile sector. The purpose of this agreement was to establish "basic principles for the relationship between capital and labor in the Mercosur," such as conditions conducive to workers exchange programs, the right to constitute shop steward committees, space for unions to influence internal programs of vocational training, etc. However, "what one expects is that in time one can establish agreements on concrete issues." In itself, the initiative is the expression of a union interaction at regional and world level (notwithstanding its limited character) that goes beyond the connections between union federations in the Southern Cone. Furthermore, it points to the possibility of expanding the spaces of contractualization at regional/world level, starting with large companies/groups.

Besides all this, the agreement opened a space for an important achievement at the new VW plants in Brazil. The company's acknowledgment of workers' right to establish shop steward committees and the recognition of unions as legitimate interlocutors in handling internal conflicts inside each plant, combined with the "strike festival," were decisive factors in boosting the creation of shop steward committees at the new VW plants in Resende, São Carlos, and Curitiba:

As we can see, the question of a national collective contract for CUT, for metalworking, and for the automobile sector is still an open issue. So are the prospects of a "citizen union," a "regional unionism" in the Southern Cone, and a "new internationalism." Nevertheless, situations like the "strike festival" suggest that, in Brazilian unionism, although greatly limited, there are signs of "resistance" that we can regard as having a "counterhegemonic" potential, provided that they assert the perpective of the "social contract" (at a time when the sociability of the "fraudulent contract" is being imposed), that they seek to articulate an increasingly internationalized action with the issues of the "national/regional project" (vis-à-vis a situation of growing dependence of peripheral and semiperipheral countries on centers of global power), that they persist in using public space, seeking to keep the "social question" in the public eye (Castel, 1998) (when what prevails is a thoroughly privatist dynamics, and "the public is no longer a structural component for the reproduction of the system" [Oliveira, 2001: 17]).

The proposal for a national collective contract for the automobile sector was not accomplished, and perhaps it won't be accomplished in the short and medium term. But this doesn't mean that the struggle of the "strike festival" didn't fulfill a part in a counterhegemonic process. I quote from Estanque: "The experiences of struggle, even when they do not achieve their material goals, are still, in spite of that, lived experiences, whose effects, because they are felt at the level of the reflexive reconfiguration of individual and collective identifications, also affect the conditions of future action" (2001: 3).

 

References

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