Social Change and Labor Unrest in Brazil since 1945.

This book is a quantitative study of strike activity in Brazil from 1945 to 1989. It is based on time-series data, gathered by the author from newspaper reports and union and government sources, on the frequency and duration of strikes, and the numbers and occupational categories of workers involved. (Curiously, there is no information on strike outcomes.) Like most studies based on statistical data, it does not make for particularly gripping reading. There is little in the way of historical drama or vivid detail; the workers who are its subject are glimpsed only dimly, as faceless abstractions whose motives and perceptions must be inferred from their collective behavior. And since the book relies heavily on secondary literature, much of its story will already be familiar to readers with some knowledge of Brazilian labor history.

Despite these drawbacks, the book presents a clear and convincing explanation of how patterns of worker mobilization have changed in Brazil since World War II, in response both to economic development and to regime changes in that country. Indeed, one of the book's central findings is that strike activity is not clearly or directly correlated with economic or work conditions (e.g., declining wages, inflation, high unemployment). Rather, workers act in response to a complicated calculus in which political factors have as much weight as economic.

National politics have major impacts on workers' struggles in all countries; but those impacts have been particularly strong in Brazil, where a system of corporatist state control over organized labor was put into place by the Getulio Vargas regime (1930-45) and remained in effect through most of the period covered in this book. These controls made the state a central actor in disputes between workers and employers; and not surprisingly, strike rates declined markedly under administrations which were unsympathetic, or actively hostile, toward organized labor (the Dutra administration of 1946-51 and the military regime of 1964-85). Conversely, strike rates and the size of strikes both increased under the populist presidencies (1951-64) of the Second Republic.

Rising strike activity always ran the risk of provoking a rightist reaction, which took place first under President (formerly General) Dutra and then, much more intensively, under the military regime of 1964-85. During the latter period, in addition to outright violence and coercion, the military governments massively "intervened" in the labor movement (replacing its leadership with new officials appointed by the Ministry of Labor), banned strikes almost entirely, and suppressed news reports of the few walk-outs (mostly illegal) which did take place. (Because of this censorship, Sandoval has no data for the period 1970-78).

State repression produced the completely unintended result of a new underground labor movement that emerged on the political scene in a wave of wildcat strikes in 1978-80. This "new unionism" of the 1970s and 80s was different from the unions of the 1950s and 60s in a number of ways. The unions of the Second Republic had been closely tied to the Ministry of Labor, and highly dependent on the national government. The new labor movement was far more independent of state power, relying instead on sources of strength that the earlier unions had tended to neglect: strong workplace organization and close ties with other "popular" movements such as neighborhood associations and Church-based community groups. The new unions were also more likely to be based in the "modern" sectors of the industrial economy, particularly the automobile industry. Not only were these the fastest-growing areas of Brazilian industry; workers in these sectors had also managed to escape the most severe repression of the military period, which targeted the unions in the "traditional" sector - textiles, clothing, shoes, construction - that had spearheaded the militancy of the 1950s and 60s.

Sandoval's discussion of the strikes of the 1980s is particularly informative. Within the industrial economy, workers in more "modern" sectors continued to be disproportionately represented in recent walk-outs; but for the first time ever, employees in the service sector surpassed industrial workers in militancy. These service workers were mainly public employees - teachers, civil servants, health workers, city transport workers - who in 1985 were granted the right to strike by the newly restored civilian government. As a result, during the strike wave of 1987-1989, public sector strikes accounted for almost half of all walkouts.

This final strike wave was comparable in intensity to that of the largest previous clustering of strikes, in 1961-63. The political context of the two waves, however, differed greatly. That of 1961-63 took place under the left-populist administration of Joao Goulart; that of 1987-89, under a rightist president, Jose Sarney, who had been part of the previous military regime. At first glance, this appears to refute Sandoval's assertions of the correlation between populist regimes and high levels of strike activity. Furthermore, the strikes of 1961-63 provoked a powerful rightist reaction in 1964, and the closing down of democracy; the strikes of 1987-89 did not. What explains the difference between these two periods?

Again, Sandoval focuses on the unintended consequences of military rule. The mobilization of civil society - including the labor movement - in a broad coalition against the dictatorship culminated in the writing of a new, anti-authoritarian constitution in 1988 that explicitly barred the state from intervening in the affairs of organized labor. This major revision of the labor code, combined with the recent departure from power of the military, freed organized labor from the restraints which had applied up until 1985. The result was a powerful wave of strikes which did not have to confront the levels of repression witnessed in the 1940s and 1960s.

So has Brazil entered a new era of labor relations, in which workers are now free to act collectively in pursuit of their economic betterment? Obviously it is too early to tell. As Brazilian workers have continued to press their claims, employers and other elites are looking back with growing nostalgia to the old system of corporatist controls, as well as to the days of military rule. Sandoval argues that neither system is compatible with a modern, industrial, urban society and economy, and that Brazil has outgrown them. I quite agree with him; but will the Brazilian elites? And if they don't, what will they try to do about it?

George Reid Andrews University of Pittsburgh