With the electoral victory of the Lula government, the hopes of the “left” were renewed. Many believed that this would be enough to “rebuild” Brazil and that, therefore, Lula would actively work to improve the quality of life of workers and provide economic and social development. Just over a year after the beginning of his government, illusions began to dissipate with the arrival of a scenario of strikes across the country.
We will illustrate this scenario by highlighting throughout the discussion the example of the strike decision in Fortaleza, Ceará. On April 4th, the union APEOC (Association of Teachers of Official Establishments of the State of Ceará), responding to the demands of teachers in the state network, organized an assembly that would debate issues in the category (salaries, career adjustments, etc.) that were not have been addressed in recent years. The struggle of education workers in Fortaleza is part of a larger, national movement, which spreads to other areas, as can be seen in the strike that began at the Federal Institutes, on April 3rd, in the possibility of a strike at Federal Universities scheduled for the next 15th[1], and even in the fight against the federal government’s regulation imposed on app workers in the category of car drivers, which is beginning to reverberate for the category of motorcyclists.
There are still other strikes and strikes that are ongoing and deserve attention. The employees of the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) have been paralyzed since October last year. Their demands are similar to other categories on strike[2]: salary increase and career restructuring. As one of the stoppage actions, Ibama employees suspended the analysis of new environmental licenses, which has impacted the work of the government’s Growth Acceleration Program (PAC). This stoppage arose from a disruption of servers with the negotiation table that has been holding up servers throughout 2023.
What is observed in the case of the State of Ceará and other Brazilian States is the execution of policies linked to capital. The government bureaucracy, at the municipal and state level, whether “left” (progressives) or “right” (conservatives), follows the guidelines imposed by Lula’s neoliberal government, the current representative of the interests of the bourgeoisie (national and international). Continuing with the guidelines set out by the previous government, Lula, alongside his ministers and other bureaucratic heads of the state, implements strategies aimed at favoring the capitalist class and its fractions (banking, industrial, educational capital, etc.). As a result, already fragile sectors, such as education and health, face further deterioration, making it unfeasible for them to remain in certain areas of the Brazilian territory.
Thus, the Lula government represents the continuity of the Bolsonaro government’s policies, although it adopts a slightly more moderate and conciliatory stance. The strategy of attacking the rights and living conditions of the working class, as well as several other social groups and discontented sectors of society, continues voraciously. These attacks also impact education, charting a dark future in subordinate neoliberal capitalism. Among the neoliberal policies adopted by Lula, the policy of fiscal austerity (seen in the “fiscal framework”) stands out. The infamous “fiscal responsibility” represents an austerity policy that means cost containment[3], mainly restricting primary spending, such as health, education, pensions, etc., and directing a large part of the state budget to paying public debt.
The process of expanded reproduction of capital in Brazil, known as “economic growth”, has shown rates of stagnation in recent years, especially after the second Dilma government. The “cuts” and “adjustments” well express the technical and cunning vocabulary of the last neoliberal governments in Brazil, corresponding to the needs of the capitalist class and other international financial institutions. The adoption of austerity policies, intensified by the approval of the spending cap in 2016, exacerbated the fiscal problem of states, municipalities and the union, negatively impacting the state budget. Education, one of the most affected areas, is experiencing an increase in the degradation of the living conditions of the workers involved, such as teachers, administrative technicians and subordinates, and, in particular, of students, the main social group included in the school institution.
The situation of education workers in the State of Ceará is not outside this context. Under discussion are not just salaries or career plans, but conditions in the workplace, the poor maintenance of building infrastructure, the lack of prospects for retirement, among other aspects. However, even without going into these details at this point, what stands out as a permanent source of dissatisfaction is the fundamental division between leaders and those led (a characteristic aspect of bureaucratic organizations), which promotes a “democratic” representation that is contradicted by reality. This is marked by a separation between the union leadership, which claims to represent the workers, and the workers themselves, who face daily hardships on the school floor, completely abandoned by their supposed representatives. Thus, dissatisfaction builds up and, over time, strains the relationship between union bureaucrats and education workers, culminating in the episode on April 4th.
In this scenario of clash of interests, on one side are the bureaucrats, committed to maintaining control and direction of the movement, imposing their previously established decisions on the “base” behind four walls, inside offices and at innocuous negotiation tables, and on the other, the workers, who aim for collective and autonomous management of their decisions. This dispute reached a critical point with the expulsion, by outraged workers, of APEOC leaders from the assembly. The union leadership attempted to carry out a coup in the assembly, blocking the vote and preventing the imminent approval of a strike by the category, which provoked an opposite reaction. The education workers present at the assembly did not accept this typical maneuver of union bureaucrats, opting for confrontation and demonstrating that the tension between these two classes triggered a struggle that was dormant, signaling the possibility of a radicalization of this scenario.
The climate of antagonism is intensified by the link between the APEOC union and its leaders and the “left” parties: PT, PCdoB, and PSOL. The year 2024 is the year of the electoral period in municipalities (city halls). The union leaders of APEOC and other allied unions seek their autonomy, aspiring to political positions and privileges with the proximity of the electoral scenario, which makes them even more allergic to any movement from the “base”. The struggle of education workers in the state is seen as potentially damaging to the electoral performance of “left” candidates, so the boycott and willingness of teachers to start a strike, with a view to the electoral process at the end of the year, conflicts with the interests of the progressive bloc, whose objective is to maintain the stability and reproduction of bourgeois society.
In another scenario, if it were not for the boycott of the APEOC union leadership, it would be convenient for its leaders to approve the vote and launch of the strike, especially in a context that could undermine a possible Bolsonaro government or a city hall linked to a conservative party. This means that the interests of the bureaucracy change with each season, according to their own class interests, and the stability of the leaders is constantly put into dispute with the aim of maintaining their reproduction in power, manipulating their “represented” as pawns in a chess game and according to the convenience of the moment of interbureaucratic struggle[4].
This antagonism of interests, evident in Fortaleza and nationally, highlights contradictions that challenge the illusions regarding the third term of Lula’s neoliberal government. The PT shows itself to be a government opposed to the workers’ struggles – as expected -, opposing the ongoing struggles with a conscious policy of demagoguery and sabotage. Not only in Ceará, but in other regions with governments allied to the PT (seen in parties such as the PSOL in Belém city hall and other cases), the repression and criminalization of the workers’ struggle is the characteristic modus operandi of the “left”. This highlights the need for a radical critique of capitalism and its main institutions, such as the state, parties and unions.
In this process of intensification of the struggle, education workers, in Ceará and other locations, together with workers from different sectors, may come to realize that the unions (and the entire bureaucratic class, which figures as the bourgeoisie’s main ally) function as state apparatuses designed to pacify workers, making them accept their own exploitation without contesting the decisions made by their “official representatives”. This function of “representation”, naturalized in everyday life, creates the idea that workers’ decisions are the responsibility of only a bureaucratically elected management. As we have seen, the example of the assembly in Ceará demonstrated that this form of “representation” is one of the most effective ways for the bourgeoisie to maintain democratic illusions, and therefore, must be combated.
In another historical context, teachers from the municipal network of Goiânia and Aparecida de Goiânia, between 2008 and 2010[5], carried out a strike in the absence of the union leadership (SINTEGO) and the city hall and education department. There was a demonstration of the strength of the self-organization of these workers who, through the strike movement, instituted strike commands capable of achieving real victories. The Strike Commands[6] made it possible to put on the agenda: a) decision-making independent of the strike movement, without depending on assemblies and calls for strikes made by the union leadership; b) the expansion of the strike movement, integrating the participation of parents and students in periodic meetings in schools to debate issues relevant to education and the strike; c) strengthening strike commands, through calling and strengthening meetings; d) the creation of permanent spaces for debate and organization in schools, neighborhoods, etc.
This process of self-organization of the struggle, illustrated by the creation of the Strike Command in Goiás, led education workers to question their salary and career conditions, the bureaucratic norms that oppressed them daily at school, the precarious working conditions and all oppressive relationships present in the school environment. Autonomous struggle presupposes the direct action of workers of a certain professional category or social class, acting on their own and through organizations that they themselves create, control, sustain and maintain, whether financially, politically or in other ways.
Maurício Tragtenberg argued that autonomous struggle in the educational sphere should create real channels of participation for teachers, students and employees, returning the management of education to those directly involved in the educational process, instead of delegating it to a external bureaucracy (school, union, etc.). In the same way that capitalism reproduces competition and antagonism between social classes, class struggle offers the possibility of overcoming these antagonisms, developing forms of solidarity among workers, as is possible in the case of education workers and, on a greater, in the union and struggle for self-management of the entire society with the entry into the scene of the proletarian class.
While the union bureaucracy positions itself as the enemy of education workers in Ceará, accusing them of troublemakers, vandals and even fascists, and counts on the support of their fellow men, the workers are left to fight through self-organization and direct confrontation with these enemies, without being intimidated by their threats. The case in Ceará is emblematic and signals a possible resurgence of the cycle of autonomous struggles during the PT government. New confrontations are expected that should rekindle radical criticism and opposition to the true meaning of democracy: a political regime that ensures the domination of the bourgeoisie and its allies. Democracy and dictatorship are two sides of the same coin, where the current government’s illusory speech only serves to camouflage its true interests, which consists of being a major obstacle to the advancement of workers’ self-emancipation.
April, 2024.
Amanajé Anarquista
Coletivo de Ação Revolucionária Anarquista (CARA)
Communismo Libertário
Crítica Desapiedada
Edições Tormenta
Insubordinados Zine
Notes
[1] In Federal Educational Institutions (IFEs), educational administrative technicians (TAEs) took the lead, driving the construction of a strike movement in favor of similar demands, especially salary recovery with an annual adjustment calculation and the restructuring of career. This follows an itinerary that is common in trade unionism in the area of “public” education: members of the boards of local sections call for a strike in their national assemblies, incorporating into the agenda the real problems that motivate the strike, such as lack of investment, cuts, etc., and along with the motivating agenda, another of a corporatist nature is demanded, such as salary adjustment and career plan. Then, the strike is put up for approval and the extensive agenda is debated in the category’s national assembly, this moment being followed by the adhesion of universities and federal institutes, as recently seen in the Andes and Fasubra assemblies. At the assembly organized by Fasubra, administrative technicians decided on a national strike starting on March 11th. In turn, the 42nd Congress of ANDES-SN, the union that “represents” teachers, unanimously decided to create a unified strike by federal employees for the first half of this year (Circular nº 067/2024 of the union) with similar demands those of the technicians (with an indication of the start of the strike on April 15th).
[2] Both teachers, TAEs and employees related to environmental issues received similar adjustment proposals: 9% paid in installments between 2025 and 2026, with a 0% adjustment in 2024.
[3] As approved, the framework establishes that expenses must be linked to revenue, that is, a certain percentage of resources can be used based on certain revenue targets achieved. In the case of education, the government’s economic team has already made it clear that it wants to establish new rules for the education floor, which, in turn, reveals the intention to cut investments in this area in order to adapt it to the fiscal framework. In addition to this adjustment that will restrict such investments, there is the aggravating factor of the zero deficit proposal that aims to bring the fiscal deficit to zero in 2024. In practice, this means reducing primary spending even further, that is, an even more restricted margin for investing not only in education, but in any social area. The adequacy of the educational floor and the goal of zero deficit, combined with possible frustrations in revenue, such as a slowdown in the economy, make the situation catastrophic for workers and discontented sectors of society, and great for the bourgeoisie and its allies.
[4] The strategy of certain reformist intellectuals, aligned with the PT, of discouraging strike movements under the premise that such actions could inadvertently strengthen the extreme right, exemplifies an effort to simplify and divert the central issues of the class struggle to a dispute between political parties. This political position has the effect of delegitimizing and suppressing the emergence and development of any radical struggles – whether spontaneous, autonomous or revolutionary – under the current government.
[5] For an analysis of this strike, see: Experiences of self-organization in the struggles of education workers in Goiás.
[6] The strike command, also known as the strike committee or fight command, is an entity distinct from the union leadership, representing an organizational form of the “base”. Their relationship with the union leadership can vary, being collaborative, contrary, or independent, depending on the dynamics of the class struggle. The formation of a strike command is a means by which workers, previously dispersed and isolated by the alienating daily life of their workplaces, unite through a common interest. At the core of this action is the class struggle. The union bureaucracy finds itself in opposition to the interests of the workers it intends to represent, imposing its direction on them, controlling their actions and, often, acting against the interests of the “base”. On the other hand, the strike command, which can be formed by individuals from different social classes, such as proletarians, subalterns and intellectuals, emerges as an alternative political force. In different contexts, this force positions itself against or even surpasses the union leadership, changing the correlation of forces in a concrete struggle. The emergence of autonomous strike commands demonstrates the strength of self-organization and the ability of workers to mobilize around their own demands and interests, regardless of the limitations and interests of the union bureaucracy.
Source
As Ilusões do Governo Lula e o novo Ciclo de Lutas Sociais no Brasil – Vários Coletivos & Páginas
Comment
The Self-management Marxist terminology of the article will be unfamiliar to most readers. See for many articles about this Brazilian political current: Self-management Marxism.
As a retired teacher in the Netherlands, I comment on the following quote: “Autonomous struggle in the educational sphere should create real channels of participation for teachers, students and employees, returning the management of education to those directly involved in the educational process”.
I have seen that at least since the 1970-ties, the management and the state have taken away the influence of teachers and students on their work (study is work!). However, a “return” that wants to take back management to the workers, cannot restore the artisanal working conditions prevailing before, nor can a movement for workers’ self-management, or in Marxist terms, for communism, be limited to the sector of education. It can only succeed by extending proletarian struggles to all sectors and finally, worldwide. (F.C.)
Left wing communism 
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