Um movimento sindical "de raça" na Bahia: as peculiaridades da ação do Sindicato dos Trabalhadores em Limpeza do Estado da Bahia - Sindlimp/BA.

Abstract

This dissertation aims to understand the role played by the incorporation of new language of political mobilization, alien to traditional labor union agendas, in an effort to strengthen Brazilian trade unions. It attempts to identify, by an analysis of the course of actions and of gains obtained through such actions on the part of Sindilimp/BA, the incorporation of a new trade union language emphasizing ethnic elements of valorization of being black, and analyze the true potential of such language as an instrument of mobilization capable of holding dialogue with the new identities to be found among members of the class who work for a living. The Trade Union Movement faces a severe crisis of structural character, which can be perceived by the reflux operating in its midst: decrease in the number of unionized members, decrease in the number of strikes, changes in the nature of the unions' claims, directed more toward guaranteeing employment and changing the line of speech of the trade unions itself This crisis is the result of a conjunction of factors, in particular the crisis of Fordism, which imposed upon the workers significant losses in the field of labor rights and in the very field itself of sociability and worker identity. To Bihr (1998)' this is a crisis of a particular model of Trade Union Movement, identified by the author as a movement of Social Democratic inspiration, which congregates both the reformists, in the usual sense of the word, and the Leninist trade unions. The latter, affected by an excessive "fetishism of the State", begin to encounter difficulties in organizing their trade categories for new demands aimed at countering impositions brought about by Globalization and Neoliberalization, movements which together with that of Productive Restmcturing, bear the main responsibility for the present state of reflux witnessed in the midst of Trade Unions. Notwithstanding such a framework of structural crisis, some trade unions, among them the Sindlimp/BA, have managed to attain significant degree of remobilization of their trade categories by incorporating new political agendas until now consigned to the realm of political parties. These new agendas have spawned new sets of group identity, thus facilitating the mobilization of workers. Sindilimp/BA, through political actions that reveal the sore spots of racial prejudice in Bahia, has generated in its trade category (where the majority of members are black) greater identity with the actions of the Trade Union, which in turn has resulted in its strengthening. Thus, we will verify whether the incorporation of this new anti-racist language may be considered an efficient alternative action of trade union mobilization.