To be a metalworker is no mean feat in Brazil, a country with more than 1,700,000 metalworkers and where the current President of the Republic, Luis Inácio Lula Da Silva, was a metalworker and trade unionist until he came to office in 2003.
Lula was president of the ABC Metalworkers’ Union, a founding member of one of the country’s national trade union centres — the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT). He was also president of the Workers’ Party and a candidate at four presidential elections until the Brazilian people finally elected him in 2002.
The news that a metalworker and not a businessman had been elected astonished many people, nationally and internationally. The inauguration ceremony was attended by thousands of people, including many metalworkers, one of whom was Julio Cesar Gonçales. Julio, who works at DaimlerChrysler, wanted to be present at Lula’s inauguration because, “I wanted to see with my own eyes a worker, a metalworker, inaugurated as president. This was a very unusual thing to happen, because people always preferred the wealthier candidates.”
The life of Julio Cesar, or “Julinho” as he is known to his friends, has many similarities with that of Lula. He is a metalworker, employed by DaimlerChrysler at its São Bernardo do Campo factory, and an activist with the ABC Metalworkers’ Union. His union is affiliated to the national metalworkers’ confederation of CUT, the Confederación Nacional de Metalúrgicos (CNM), which is affiliated to the IMF. Like Lula, poverty also forced Julinho’s family to emigrate to the São Paulo region. “I was 13 when I arrived from Minas Gerais with my parents and 11 brothers and sisters in 1978 to live in a house that had only one bedroom.”
The family set up home in the area known as the ABC region of São Paulo, which includes seven of the 33 municipalities that form the São Paulo metropolitan region. The ABC region is the country’s industrial heartland and it takes its name from the initials of the three local municipalities — Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo and São Caetano do Sul.
Julinho lives in Mauá, one of the seven ABC municipalities, in a poor neighbourhood, with his wife Deborah and two sons, seven-year-old João Victor and Pedro Henrique, who is 18 months old.
José Pereira Miranda works at the MWM engine plant and is an activist in the union affiliated to the metalworkers’ confederation of the national trade union centre Força Sindical, the Confederación Nacional de Trabalhadores Metalúrgicos (CNTM), also an affiliate of the IMF.
José is the oldest of eight brothers. His family also emigrated from Mineras Gerais and when he was 14 arrived in São Paulo with his family to live in a shanty town. He now lives on the outskirts of the city, with his wife Mirley and three-year-old daughter Milena. He is building his own house, where he intends to start an internet services business aimed at young people in the neighbourhood who have no access to computers. “Thanks to God, I am just finishing my house. I bought a plot of land for my family and little by little began to build my house. I have completed the kitchen, a bedroom, the bathroom and the laundry room and I am building a second floor, which will be the library.”
José and Julinho endured an extremely poor childhood. However, becoming metalworkers has led to a considerable improvement in their living conditions. Julinho started work at the DaimlerChrysler factory in São Bernardo do Campo in 1999, after working in several small factories as a teenager. Getting a job at Daimler made it possible for him to marry Deborah that same year and to finally build a home for them. He is currently a logistics operator and works from 5:45 a.m. till 3 p.m. for an hourly wage of 13 reais and 45 cents (US$7.05). Speaking of his wages, he says, “the way things are today, it’s a fairly good wage. It was worse under previous governments. Inflation has stabilised under Lula and the prices are the same when I go to the supermarket. Prices used to go up every month when Fernando Henrique Cardoso was president. I can afford to buy much more food now. I used to go only to small markets but now I can go to the major supermarkets and shopping malls where rich people go.”
In 1988, after advice from a friend who worked at MWM, José called at the engine plant to leave his resumé. “I thought the work looked great and decided that I wanted to work there, and that is exactly what happened,” he said. He works from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. assembling engines and his monthly wage is approximately 1500 reais (US$785).
Importance of the union
Workers in the ABC region are active in the trade union struggle on a daily basis. The metalworkers’ unions have negotiated significant benefits for them and workers at DaimlerChrysler are no exception. Julinho believes the union is very important and that it was thanks to the union’s efforts that he still has a job.
He recalls a time when he became ill in 2000 and was unable to work for four months. “When I returned to work, I was on the list of workers to be sacked. I went and spoke to the local union at the plant and it gave me full support, saying that I should not be sacked for being ill. I was laid-off for one month but the first thing the union did was to ensure I was paid normally. Then I received a call telling me I had been reinstated.”
According to Julinho, the benefits provided by the company, such as health insurance and country club and food vouchers, were won by the works council (Commissão de Fábrica).
Works councils consist of representatives of the workers at the plant and are usually organised by a union. They offer facilities for workers, such as cafes, computers and games, although some are better equipped than others.
At DaimlerChrysler the works council is staffed by members who work full time for the union.
For José Pereira, “the unions are extremely important and provide an organisational base that keeps us united inside and outside the factory. The union’s presence inside the company is very important. We are now more aware about wages issues, we respect agreements and we defend our interests.”
Among the benefits provided by MWM, which he argues are the result of the works council’s work, are transport, improved canteen, health care, schooling and education agreements. He emphasises that, “I myself am a beneficiary. I am studying to be a teacher and aim to get a qualification in teaching Portuguese.” He also said he wants to improve his English because, “the labour market needs skills and metalworkers need to study and specialise more these days. I feel the need to learn and I intend to work as a teacher in the afternoon or in the evening. There is a lot of demand because, in Brazil, you have to
go to private schools to get a good education.”
The trade union struggle
Latin America has endured military governments in many countries in recent times, including Brazil, where the dictatorship lasted from 1964 until 1985. This was a period of repression, murders and human rights abuses.
At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, trade unions became stronger and the metalworkers were among the first to reorganise. It was at this time that the two unions, CNM/CUT and CNTM/Força Sindical, emerged. Both confederations are currently fighting for the same things, however CNM/CUT is more closely linked to one of the parties in the government, as more than 80 per cent of CUT’s leaders are members of Lula’s party, the Workers’ Party.
The election of a trade union leader and metalworker as president raised expectations about Brazilian government policy on labour issues. However, in practice, what has having a metalworker as president meant for Brazil? Have workers and trade unions benefited?
Eleno Becerra, CNTM/Força Sindical President, says, “everybody thought that the Lula government would solve most of the problems of Brazilian workers, for example, trade union reform, legalisation of the trade union centres and reduction in working time. This has not happened but this government has been a bit better than previous governments.”
Valter Sanches, CNM/CUT General Secretary, says, “because of Lula’s personal history and commitment, government policy is focused on improving the situation of the poorest people. For example, its policy of increasing the real value of the minimum wage, which was negotiated with the trade unions, has doubled the purchasing power of the minimum wage in four years.” He explains that, “the country has begun to grow and develop again, but with better distribution of income. The poorest regions are growing faster than the average for the country as a whole. The domestic market is growing and has created almost eight million jobs between 2003 and 2006, including 400,000 in the metalworking industry.”
He adds, “to have a metalworker as president makes all the difference because Lula takes every opportunity to show he is on our side. However, as the government is a coalition government composed of political forces that want to promote policies favourable to capital, the trade unions are more conscious than ever of the need to maintain their independence and fight for workers’ interests.”
Both leaders agree that wage increases have been the biggest achievement for metalworkers. In the last four years, the growth in employment, especially in the metalworking industry, has resulted in a reduction in regional wage differences, a 12 per cent real increase in wages and a 40 per cent increase in the basic wage rate.
They also agree about the problems faced by workers and their unions. Outsourcing is one of them, especially in the more far-flung cities in Brazil.
“There is a big difference between regions with a greater or lesser tradition of trade union organisation. Companies often pay workers in some regions of the country up to four times less than they do in the regions with higher wages,” explains Sanches.
“There are two different situations in Brazil. In the south, unions are better structured, are stronger, stand up to the companies in negotiations and prevent outsourcing. In the north, unions find this more difficult to do. So we are conducting a campaign to combat this difference,” said Becerra. The aim is to conclude agreements that cover metalworkers in all regions of Brazil. Sanches explains that, “the central focus of our campaign is to achieve a national collective agreement aimed at reducing these regional and sector differences. Our main slogan is to campaign for a Unified National Wage Campaign in September.”
Reforming the labour laws
In Brazil, the Consolidated Labour Laws (CLT) do not provide for the existence of trade union centrals. So the trade union structure and legislation on collective bargaining hold back the unions. “Many companies do not respect the right to trade union organisation. It is very common for trade union leaders to be sacked if they begin to fight for the rights of their colleagues,” explains Sanches.
That is why the confederations are pressuring the National Congress to vote for a Trade Union Reform Bill and protesting against attempts by the right in Congress to introduce legislation to make employment more “flexible”.
Eleno agrees that employment legislation needs modernising but argued that this should not result in the elimination of workers’ rights. He added that the 1988 Constitution made industrial relations more difficult in Brazil because it allowed the creation of unions for each type of job, which weakens unions. For example, a company employing 500 workers may have 200 separate categories of workers and so the workforce cannot be represented collectively. “The trade union movement in this country today is one of the strongest in the world, but it could be a lot stronger,” Eleno added.
Unions are also campaigning on the issue of working time. Studies carried out by the trade union research institute, DIESSE, show that the average working week of a metalworker is 42 hours in São Paulo, 44 hours in Salvador and 47 hours in Recife, with 65.1 per cent of workers exceeding the number of hours permitted by the law.
The metalworkers’ confederations are working together to reduce the working week from 44 to 40 hours. They aim to organise a campaign to reduce working time, which will encourage the creation of new jobs and avoid exploitation of workers.
Poverty, the value of education, children
Julinho and José are aware that there are significant differences between the different regions of Brazil. The wages and working time of people in São Paulo are very different to those in the interior of the state or in other states like Minas Gerais, where people must work harder but receive lower wages.
“A lot of my friends find it very difficult to earn a living and are very poor”, said José. He speaks of how poverty led, for example, to mothers giving their children away for adoption because they cannot afford to look after them. José knows about this from personal experience because he adopted his daughter Milena. He and his wife tried for a child for around ten years, but despite treatment, this did not happen, so they decided to adopt. They waited for two years before adopting Milena. The baby’s biological mother gave her away for adoption because she already had two children and was living in extreme poverty.
The metalworkers’ trade union movement, especially in São Paulo, has managed to achieve better working and living conditions after much struggle. Its biggest achievement is participation in company profits. Workers receive an annual amount negotiated by the union. Thanks to the profit sharing scheme, Participação nos Lucros e Resultados (PLR) – as it is called in Brazil, Julinho and José have been able to build their own house, buy a car and make their families more comfortable. “Before I started working at DaimlerChrysler, I only had a plot of land. Now I can go to the beach, and enjoy myself more,” said Julinho.
Both workers have a lot in common. They emigrated with their families to escape poverty and spent their childhood in great need. So when they talk about their dreams, they focus on education.
“I dream that trade unions will always be here, so that I will feel secure that I can work for the company until I retire. Many workers would be unemployed without the union. I also want my children to go to university, to have a profession and to be recognized because of
their education,” said Julinho.
“I want to be always achieving things, improving through education, learning new languages and that my daughter has a good education. We need to keep fighting to ensure these dreams come true,” said José.
There are many workers, like José and Julinho, who have escaped poverty and now live in dignified conditions thanks to their employment as metalworkers and their understanding of the importance of trade unions. Through solidarity the hope is that all other Brazilian workers will achieve as much as they have.
Brazil
The Federal Republic of Brazil has 180 million inhabitants. Its capital is Brasilia and its language is Portuguese.
The head of the Executive Power is the President, elected by universal suffrage every four years.
Brazil is the leading country of the Mercosur region (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) and plays an important role in the G20. It is currently an agricultural superpower and industrialised country. It is a major exporter of vehicles, mobile phones and aircraft.
Taking action against precarious work
In recent months thousands of metalworkers have participated in mass mobilizations to stop precarious workers from losing access to social benefits.
In March, President Lula signed into law a bill that creates the “Super-Receita” a public organisation that combines the revenue collection units from the federal tax service with the social security tax collections. However, Lula vetoed the controversial “Amendment 3”, which was added by a group of parliamentarians to the tax reform bill and approved by Congress by a very large margin. The amendment prohibited tax collectors from deciding whether a “self-employed” professional could be considered a “firm” or a regular individual tax payer, effectively limiting workers that are precariously employed from accessing social benefits. For example, the amendment would end the 13th wage (a bonus paid in December), paid holidays, healthcare, redundancy payments and other benefits.
The same group of parliamentarians that introduced the bill are threatening to override the veto. Both the CNTM/FS and the CNM/CUT are fully mobilised against this reform and have been supporting a series of protests and demonstrations on the issue.
Eleno Becerra, CNTM/FS President, says that if Lula had not vetoed the proposal, “he would have gone down in history as the president who removed workers’ rights, because there would not be many registered workers left within the next six years. We would have become another China, which is what the companies want.”
