By José Carlos Miranda – Curator Council Member of Lauro Campos Foundation (PSOL) and from Resistência tendency PSOL
The hauliers strike has shaken Brazil. After 9 days of strikes and roadblocks, fuel and food shortages were experienced throughout the country. On the market shelves, some products were already priced-up because of the lack of available goods. Furthermore, several industrial plants were nearly or completely paralyzed. In short, Brazil was brought to a halt.
Weakened and cornered, President Temer made huge concessions on Sunday 27th May, in an attempt to end the strike. He met most of the hauliers’ demands, such as the diesel price reduction for sixty days, a minimum price for freight, toll-exemption for suspended axle lorries, among other points.
However, the strike went on, and new players were brought in: there was repression by the army, state governors came in to negotiate, and so on. To increase even more the pressure upon the government, the oil workers decided to go on strike. It is important to highlight that, even before the strike started, a TST (Labour High Court) minister issued an injunction stating the strike was illegal and imposing a 2 million BRL daily fine. This and other factors as cooled the movement down to some extent.
But the further events took place in quick sequence: on June 1st, when the president of the state-owned oil company, Petrobras, Pedro Parente, stepped down. Parente was the person mainly responsible for the Petrobras-assets privatization and the government’s petrol-prices policy, which meant that the prices of petrol and other oil-based products were readjusted twice in a week, depending on international oil prices. Actually, that was the main reason for the hauliers’ strike.
The strike was an important setback for the illegitimate Temer government, who had, one day earlier, communicated through one of his ministers that “nothing would change”.
Analyzing the strike and links with the right
The hauliers’ strike and its road blockages were supported by 87% of the Brazilian people, according polls carried out the Datafolha institute and that was despite the shortages of fuel and goods caused by the strike. The strike was carried out by autonomous hauliers, employed lorry drivers and by businessmen of the transportation companies. It was, therefore, a movement involving workers and some bosses. However, what was also evident was the antagonism of some autonomous hauliers. There was a lockout, but it was not the dominant element. The radicalization of the lorry drivers was the determining factor in the strike. On the other hand, the main demand – reduction of fuel prices – was seen as fair and served as a trigger for a pent-up social discontent.
The strike made the failure of the oil company’s current pricing policy very clear. With its variation with changes on the international market, it meant successive increases in prices that penalized the majority of the Brazilian population and was felt to be damaging to the national sovereignty. Only the bankers, foreign oil companies and international profiteers made benefits from it.
That policy was linked to the Petrobras privatization, putting the company at the mercy of the interests of the financial market and not the needs of working people or the needs of Brazilian social development.
The hauliers’ movement was progressive because of its main demand, for objectively opposing the privatization strategy of the Petrobras board and for stimulating other workers’ struggles. However, there were significant contradictions in this movement: the far-right and capitalist politicians have disputed the political character of the strike. The presidential candidacy of right-winger, Jair Bolsonaro, for example, is supported by some of the hauliers and so he declared support for the strike, as did the MBL and some other far-right organizations.
These organisations are trying to take advantage of the current crisis to promote the agenda of a new military intervention in Brazil, an idea that has been given some substance in the last days, with the use of the Army and the participation of the military high command in trying to repress the strike. There is a real danger that the movement gets led and that political capital is gained by these most reactionary forces.
To avoid that risk, it is important to be clear about the direction and the framework within which the strike unfolds. Those left groups who consider the strike a reactionary movement, from the beginning are making a mistake – and in so doing are leaving the way open for the far-right to gain influence. On the other hand, organizations that belittle the bosses and corporate participation and exaggerate the importance of reactionary political forces are wrong, considering only the positive aspect of the process.
Bring the working-class to the struggle to stop the far-right
We believe that it was very important to support the haulier’ strike, raising an independent workers’ program and confronting the right-wing and the far-right sectors involved in the process. That was, incidentally, an important element of this movement that had even signs of mass strike. Unlike the demonstrations in June and July of 2013, the Left dived into the hauliers’ dispute.
In several pickets built by the hauliers, the MST (Movement of the Landless Workers) donated food and helped on its preparation and serving. In many others, pickets, the trade unions and social movements joined the lorry drivers. One example was the one built on the biggest port in Latin America (in Santos, São Paulo state) where the dockers, construction workers, metalworkers and public-sector unions united with the hauliers and even held common assemblies to define the direction of the movement.
Despite the paralysis of the leadership of the Workers Party (PT) and Trade union Federation (CUT), the PSOL, several unions the MTST, MST and other movements intervened very well. The oil workers’ strike was a signal that there was a chance to unify the struggles, taking advantage of the moment to bring onto the scene the various groups of organized workers, such as oil workers, electricians, underground workers, auto workers, public servants, teachers, etc.
If the working class comes onto the scene, in an organized and coordinated way, it is possible to overthrow this government and conquer significant achievements.
In this situation, of a huge social and political crisis, it is necessary to push the movement to the left, without hesitation. While the Temer government is agonizing, the capitalist class and the traditional right are confused, the far-right acts resolutely in an attempt to gain influence. On the other hand, most of the left and the trade unions, so far, are paralyzed in a critical situation.
The PT and CUT, for example, made only declarations. The trade unions, absurdly, instead of broadening the struggle, put themselves forward as mediators, trying to calm down the strike. In that way, they facilitated the advance of Bolsonaro and the military intervention agenda. The Fascist candidate is strong but does not have the majority support among the workers and the people. The Left and the unions have social and political influence to dispute the process.
In this sense, the trade unions, social movements and leftist parties must meet immediately to schedule a national day of struggle. A day of strikes and mobilization to raise the flag of the immediate reduction of fuel cooking gas prices (without reduction of Social Security funding), which defends Petrobras (demanding the end of the current prices policy and dismissal of Pedro Parente) and the end of Eletrobrás privatization process. A day which demands more jobs, decent wages, the repeal of the Labour Reform and the end of the social investments freezing. It is also important to advocate for a tax reform that will demean the workers and the poorest, and increase the taxation of the richest, as well as defend the democratic freedoms, which are currently under threat. A day which demands Lula’s freedom and justice for Marielle and Anderson.
The economic recovery has failed and the social crisis deepens every day. Two years after the coup commanded by Temer, unemployment has risen – there are already almost 30 million Brazilians unemployed or underemployed -, there are no resources for education, health and social housing. The wages are very weak and violence is rampant. The economic “adjustment” and “reforms” program has benefited only the super-rich, while the vast majority of the population lives with increasing poverty, scarcity and inequality.
The working class is paying off the crisis. Social unrest is widespread. It is time to join forces to struggle and get on the scene so as not to let the far right capitalize on the just demand of the hauliers and the discontent of the working people.
Merger of M-LPS (Movimento Luta Pelo Socialismo) and Resistência-PSOL
It is in this complex situation, after a year of common intervention in the daily struggles after debates on principles and perspectives, that these two left organizations have now unified.
This merging has a profound significance in the Brazilian and international socialist movement, and even more so in this situation. The merging of groups and militants of diverse origins is a rare occurrence, and if we succeed we will see the results in the building of an organization as an important component part of a revolutionary, workers’ socialist party with mass influence, in Brazil and in other countries. Such an international organization is not merely the sum of groups and militants who proclaim themselves an embryo leadership of the world revolution, but It will be a tool and a point of support for the everyday struggles. It will be an organisation that is participates in the workers’ struggles, both for immediate and for its historical working-class interests, with the best traditions of the socialist movement, and of the movements of the exploited and oppressed of all the world.
June 12, 2018
