XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Can Social Dialogue be Transformational in Socially-Polarized Brazil? Labor Relations under the 3rd Lula Administration

• In Event: Contemporary Politics and Society in Brazil

Abstract

Faced by ongoing authoritarian threats on the domestic level and increased geopolitical polarization on the international scenario, the new Lula government is confronting many challenges in order to enact the social, economic and political reforms it promised during the 2022 Presidential campaign. On the labor front, the current government has already made strides in rolling back some of the most regressive policies implemented during the Temer and Bolsonaro administrations, that negated the possibilities of real minimum wage increases and hobbled labor inspectors from exposing employers benefitting from modern day slavery. However, we argue that it will be more difficult to reverse key elements of the regressive 2017 labor law reform, which introduced new forms of precarious contracting, restricted access to the labor justice system, undermined the integrity of the collective bargaining system, and dramatically curtailed union financing. This paper will present a preliminary balance of the efforts led by the Labor Ministry to build and implement a consensus position regarding labor relations reform among social actors. We argue that the path-dependent expectations of the employer’s group to maintain many of the neoliberal tenets of the previous labor law reform, together with labor’s diffuse support in the Legislative branch, makes the final ratification of a more thorough pro-worker and pro-union reform exceedingly difficult.

Authors

• Jana Silverman, Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC)

• Stanley Gacek, UFCW