Abstract
This book by Ruy Braga, originally published in Brazil in 2012 and in English in 2018, discusses the conditions of precarious labor relations in Brazil from the 1930s to the beginning of the 21st century. Focusing on changes in terms of its organization, it stresses the importance of Lulism – a neologism stemming from the Lula da Silva government – along with the concrete socioeconomic problems that, at each moment, became a fundamental trait of capitalist economies around the globe. As such, it constitutes a broader work on sociological theory, discussing and mobilizing a number of concepts to evaluate their relevance, while getting into a deeper debate concerning contemporary labor relations and their ties to wider social conflicts.
The book is made up of two parts, each one divided into two chapters. The conclusion is followed by a number of small pieces named ‘interventions’. 1 The two larger parts – the first one entitled ‘The Formation of the Reversal’ and the second ‘The Transformation of Hegemony in Reverse’ – present an effort, to be found throughout this work as a whole, of continuously promoting an enticing dialogue between empirical research and theoretical interpretations. In this sense it offers an important contribution to the foreign audience by taking up vital historical developments throughout the 20th century as well as proposing a framework to understand contemporary trends.
Braga’s working hypothesis is made explicit in the introduction: I argue that due to the commodification of labour, the capitalist character of the division of labour and the anarchy of the reproduction of capital, precariousness is actually constituent of the wage relation. Consequently, the precariat should not be defined as the antipode of wage labour, as a repressed ‘bastard’. In fact, it is the very condition of the existence of wage labour: as much in Western Europe as in the United States, the Fordist compromise showed itself quite adept at protecting the professional, white, male, adult, national and unionised fractions of the working class at the expense of the unskilled or semiskilled, female, black, young and immigrant working class. (p. 3)
Before getting further into the argument, initially it is important to point out two conceptual traits central to this Marxist debate. Under precariat he understands the relative surplus population (p. 4). On the one side, this reinforces the relational aspects of this condition; on the other, it characterizes a transitional situation, that can turn into upward or downward mobility at any moment. It also presents itself as an important tool to better understand the reproduction of peripheral capitalism.
It is worth observing that my notion of the precariat is distinct from the subproletariat for two reasons: in socio-occupational terms, I distinguish the precariat from what Marx called the impoverished population as well as from the lumpenproletariat, that is, those in ‘disreputable’ occupations; in political terms, I do not accept the assumption that the least skilled and lowest-paid layers of workers are not capable of raising demands and collective mobilization. (p. 13)
The broad contextualization starts in the first chapter, presenting and reconstructing the birth of the sociology of work in Brazil, foremost during the 1950s and 1960s, centered around the debate on the conditions of peripheral Fordism. It sheds light on concrete empirical problems of the time: so-called modernization processes as well as the emergence of trade unions derived from the ongoing industrialization. Besides pointing out the most important sociologists and politicians involved in designing these approximations, which also express the dispute between professional and applied sociology, Braga chooses to focus on two ethnographic studies directed towards the specific relations around class struggle and their forms of protests, highlighting populism and strikes.
According to the study by Leôncio Martins Rodrigues, these were both seen as vital elements to understand how workers saw their union: mostly as a welfare organization, and only sporadically as a means to achieve better working conditions (and, therefore, class consciousness). In his turn, Juarez Rubens Brandão Lopes focuses on a somehow estranged relation between workers and union, epitomized in the idea that the union was organized by someone else for themselves, that is, without recognizing that it was a worker’s union. Concluding this first chapter, Braga takes up a number of rebuttals directed at these studies, and points out the two overarching critiques: the problem of class consciousness and the problem of capitalist underdevelopment. These studies contributed towards understanding the making of the Brazilian working class, although they remained as rather limited contributions to change the ‘science’ of how these processes took place.
The second chapter starts by stressing the approximations between (academic) sociology of work and trade unions, most notably expressed through the creation of Dieese (Departamento Intersindical de Estatística e Estudos Socioeconômicos / Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies), in charge of producing data concerning livings costs and unemployment. In part this was also present in the central role exerted by Francisco Weffort and Francisco de Oliveira, both professors that would contribute to analyzing strikes and the workers’ movement as well as become central participators in the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT – the Workers’ Party). Their work was able to highlight the organization of ‘a new structure of class struggles’ (p. 100). Furthermore, this period witnessed the initial steps towards the creation of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT – Unified Workers’ Central).
Braga shows how they turned their attention to the relation between rank and file and trade union leaders, and at a certain point Weffort failed to adequately grasp the changes concerning their relationship, something that was taken up critically by the work of Luiz Pereira initiated in the 1960s. An important continuity in these approaches was the centrality of class struggle along with the idea that it was fundamental to interpret the specificity of peripheral Fordism. Both this so-called critical sociology of work as well as Weffort’s public sociology highlighted the dynamics of industrialization in the state of São Paulo, considering issues such as migration and the (embryonic) formation of a class consciousness.
In going back to these works, that later on were rather marginalized in their importance, Braga argues that a central aspect should be preserved to better understand the contemporary moment: how Lulism has been fundamentally seen as incorporating trade union leaders into leading positions at the level of state bureaucracy while failing to grasp the discontents among the working class.
Moving on to the second part of the book, entitled ‘The Transformation of Hegemony in Reverse,’ Braga presents as the hypothesis guiding his third chapter: . . . the transformation of the metalworking precariat into a powerful political subject that led, in its encounter with the union bureaucracy of São Bernardo, to the primitive form of Lulista hegemony in 1978: the articulation of active consent with the passive consent of the rank and file was grounded on the negotiation of small concessions for workers from the companies. (p. 125)
To work this through he decides to focus on the works of mainly three contributors: Celso Frederico, John Humphrey, and Luís Flavio Rainho, aiming his focus on how ‘the transformation of the object of knowledge occurred, that is, the relations between metalworkers and the union bureaucracy of São Bernardo’ (p. 129), looking at a number of strikes that took place during a period from the end of the 1960s until the beginning of the 1980s. Among the many facets pointed out in the literature and taken up by Braga stand out that the workers’ discontent formed a class consciousness, contributing to generate internal conflicts among unionism, and to promote strikes, sometimes in spite of what the union bureaucracy and leaders preferred. Nevertheless, once these waves of strike passed, union bureaucracy established itself, laying the ground for what would later transform itself into so-called Lulism: ‘a new form of social domination – centred on the reformist pacification of labour conflicts combined with the integration of the most active militants into the union structure, that is, in the state’ (p. 175).
The fourth and last chapter turns to the understanding of an empirical expression of the precariat: the Brazilian telemarketing sector. Braga does this by presenting findings of his fieldwork, choosing to ‘highlight five key variables: organisational model of work, pattern of proletarianisation, skill level, wage relations and forms of collective mobilisation’ (p. 185). This allows him to take into account the changes in the working class’s composition – for instance, a rising proportion of LGBTTs – and to discuss a new sector, representative of wider trends affecting contemporary labor relations. At the same time, he shows the circumstances under which the Lula da Silva government promoted union leaders into important bureaucratic positions in the Brazilian federal ministries or state-controlled enterprises.
His final remarks stress how this work aims to point out the dialectical and contradictory aspects that constitute present-day unionism in Brazil, relating it to the workers’ conditions under the auspices of new labor rights as well as different understandings concerning the concepts of career, workplace, and identities. These important insights covering the Brazilian reality by themselves are a relevant contribution. Furthermore, the foreign reader is confronted with a number of deep reflections referring to a solid theoretical work throughout the second part of the 20th century, and these approaches are thoroughly linked to recent empirical findings. Hence it is a highly recommended reading for those interested in sociology of work as well as other themes that dialogue with contemporary labor relations.