Labour Conflicts and Union Strategies in Dilma Rousseff’s Governments

• In Event: Social protest in Latin America within the crisis of the left turn

Abstract

The article addresses the Brazilian labour movement with an examination of the strategies adopted by the most relevant union federations between 2011 and 2016. The first section covers some aspects regarding the relationship between the labour movement and the PT governments. The second section presents the profile and characteristics of the protests that took place during the two terms of Dilma Rousseff’s presidency. This assessment is based on the Strike Tracking System from Interunion Department of Statistics and Socio-economic Studies (Dieese) and on a database of protest events, built as part of the research project “Political contention in Brazil (1998-2016)”. We consider some hypotheses to explain both the protests and the support to the government, in addition to explaining the distancing of the labour movement from the government and the former’s subsequent realignment.

Author

• Andréia Galvão, Universidade Estadual de Campinas