SILVA, P. C.; http://lattes.cnpq.br/0776630055765102; SILVA, Paulo Candido da.
Abstract:
This is a study on the mobilization of sugar cane workers of Alagoas, a State of North
east from Brazil, between 2007 and 2009. Initially the movements assumed a
character of spontaneous struggles due to poor working conditions on the suger cane
fields on that state. There is a striking effect of such demonstrations in the actions of
the Brazilian Public Ministry of Labor and the Brazilian Ministry of Labor. This new
form of state action, coupled with new forms of articulation and mobilization of
workers, allowed the visualization of a new scenario of social struggles of rural labor
in the sugar cane sector in the Northeast of Brazil. Based on Thompson (1978),
Rudé (1991), Scott (2000), these labor conflicts of sugarcane workers were focused
in historical and dialectical approach. This study tries also to understand the
processes of struggle of sugar cane workers as social experiences of collective
resistance, given the new configuration of labor relations in the sector, manifested in
the period of research. Thus, it was possible to verify the actions of revolts of sugar
cane cutters, in a context in which rural workers have emerged as a new historical
actor in the countryside of Alagoas. They introduced themselves as well as social
actors able to influence on the public agenda of the various state institutions, to
produce a change in labor relations of sugar-ethanol production sector of State of
Alagoas, Brazil.