What is strike?
A strike is basically a collective action carried out voluntarily by the workers of interruptiontotalorpartial of their functions at their jobs. Strike is a mechanism used by workers from different parts of the world to achieve improvements in your work situation, such as security issues, employment benefits or wages. The strike is not only aimed at improvements, but is sometimes carried out by workers to prevent the devaluation of their function or the loss of current benefits.
The strike in Brazil is protected as a fundamental citizen's right by Federal Constitution of 1988, which, in its article 9, states:
Art 9 – The right to strike is guaranteed, and it is up to the workers to decide on the opportunity to exercise it and on the interests that they should defend through it.
§ 1O – The law will define the essential services or activities and provide for meeting the urgent needs of the community.
§ 2O – The abuses committed subject those responsible to the penalties of the law|1|.
Who can go on strike?
The strike can be carried out by workers from public institutions and private institutions as an instrument to defend their interests. This subject is the target of intense debate by jurists who discuss the legal extensions of the strike as a form of organized struggle by workers.
Has the strike always been a worker's right?
Strike was not always seen by the State as a fundamental right of workers, since, throughout Brazilian history, The strike was seen by the state as a crime, and the striking workers were targets of intense repression by the forces. cops. This happened after an 1890 law that stipulated the strike as a criminal illicit act.
The criminalization of the strike also took place during the new state, a dictatorial period in which Brazil was ruled by Vargas between 1937 and 1945. The Constitution of that period (1937) classified the strike as follows:
“Strike and lockout are declared antisocial resources, harmful to labor and capital and incompatible with the superior interests of national production.|2|”
Strike as a form of workers' struggle
The strike became popular as an instrument of workers' struggle with the industrial development caused by the Industrial Revolution, mainly from the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution was responsible for the replacement of manufacturing by machinery and caused profound changes in the quality of life of workers.
In the 19th century, English industrial workers saw their wages drop drastically and were forced to work in dirty places, without any kind of safety rules and exposed to an exhausting daily workload (it reached 16 hours of daily work in many locations).
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
For this reason, workers' organizations, also known as unions, to delimit forms of resistance. From these organizations, movements such as Luddism and Chartism emerged. In the case of the Chartists, the strike was an alternative to pressure the bosses and the government for improvements to be implemented. From this struggle, there were important gains, such as the reduction of the daily workload, salary increase, prohibition of child labor, etc.
In Brazil, the organization of workers and the labor movement were late compared to England. Around 1890, there was already a labor movement in Brazil, but a massive mobilization of workers only took place in 1917 during the General Strike. In any case, between 1900 and 1920, approximately 400 strikes were organized in Brazil, which demanded rights similar to those demanded by British workers|3|.
Read too: Consolidation of Labor Laws in the Vargas Era
Examples of big strikes in Brazil
THE 1917 General Strike, for example, mobilized more than 50 thousand workers in São Paulo and lasted for 30 days. This strike was preceded by other strike movements in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and had long-term repercussions for workers' movements in Brazil. The historian Boris Fausto|4| summarizes the demands of the 1917 strikers:
Salary improvement;
Prohibition of work by children under 14 years of age;
8-hour journey a day;
50% surcharge for overtime etc.
This strike movement in Brazil was greatly inspired by socialist and anarchist ideals. At least until 1920, strike momentum remained strong in Brazil. From that date onwards, the mobilization of workers lost strength as a result of government repression. Other strike movements of great repercussion in Brazil were the 300 thousand strike, which took place in 1953, and the strikes that took place in the ABC paulista between 1978 and 1980, in a movement that mixed labor struggle and the struggle for the return of democracy in Brazil.
*Image credits: Ververidis Vassilis and Shutterstock
|1| BRAZIL. Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil of 1988. To access click on here.
|2| 1937 Constitution. To access click on here.
|3| SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and STARLING, Heloísa Murgel. Brazil: A Biography. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2015, p. 336.
|4| FAUSTO, Boris. History of Brazil. São Paulo: Edusp, 2013, p. 257.
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SILVA, Daniel Neves. "What is a strike?"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/o-que-e/historia/o-que-e-greve.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
General history
Labor movement, Industrial Revolution, Capitalism, Chartist movement, the conditions of the first workers, popular revolts, Feargus O'Connor, William Lovett, People's Charter, English Parliament, social movements for Europe.
