Brésil, travail et travailleurs

Robert Cabanes — Brazil : Labour and labourers — Trade Unionism between corporatism and clientelism, paternalism and globalisation. Brazilian labour unionism happens to be at a crossroads characterised by the interaction between historical tendencies, current national choices (october 2002 elections) and the entry of industry into globalisation. This article attempts to assess the conditions open to its evolution by rapidly recalling its foundations and the recent history of the last 30 years. — Perspectives of the labouring classes in Brazil. Descriptions of the foundations of a labour-culture, as drawn from family accounts, stress the importance of the domestic bases and of the reference to cooperation labour, dominating hierarchical labour. The data involved is not affected by the precariousness of employment, which is an old feature of Brazilian labour trends. The said process has always had national expressions in form of minor unions and has new decentralised forms in relation to production, thus expressing a decentralised form of local democracy.Cabanes Robert. Brésil, travail et travailleurs. In: Tiers-Monde, tome 43, n°171, 2002. Trajectoires latino-américaines. Regards sur Cuba, sous la direction de Rémy Herrera. pp. 599-600