LABOUR-BRAZIL: Protests Expand Land and Wage Demands

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 11 2000 (IPS) - Federal government employees in Brazil began a strike Wednesday to demand pay raises after five years of frozen wages, an event that coincided with the annual day of protest by the nation’s rural workers, underscoring the widespread social tensions here.

The demonstrations Wednesday were concentrated in Brasilia, where the National Congress debated the minimum wage – set by the government at 151 ‘reais’ (83 dollars) per month – under pressure from unionists, government employees and peasants who demand an increase.

The governing party accepted the risk that a vote on the wage bill could fall on May 10, the day of “The Call for Land,” a protest led each year by the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) and other organisations that favour agrarian reform and improved social conditions for rural workers and family farmers.

An estimated 10,000 people from throughout the country were mobilised for the protest organised by CONTAG, adding their voice to demands for a decent minimum wage. Most formally employed rural workers and retired farmers earn only the legal minimum salary.

The strike, which did not shut down public services but slowed or paralysed some sectors, – primarily universities -, involves approximately 450,000 government employees who demand a 64 percent raise, which reflects the inflation rate of the last five years.

They also demand a 29 percent benefit that was granted only to military personnel in 1993. Many employees have already won this claim through the judicial system, leading the government to propose a five-year payment plan to the rest, but the majority rejected the offer.

A strike at the Rio de Janeiro-based Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, however, is especially worrisome. The research centre, which employs 3,000 people, produces and distributes vaccines and medications for treating epidemics such as yellow fever, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS.

Teacher’s strikes are also widespread at the state level. In Sao Paulo, professors and administrators at the three state universities have been on strike for the last two weeks, and the movement has expanded to include the area’s primary schools.

The fight to increase the country’s minimum wage – which is one of the lowest in the world – has become an annual event, but this year is even stronger due to the participation of governing party leaders, including Senate president Antonio Carlos Magalhaes, who has led a campaign for a minimum monthly wage of at least 100 dollars.

The fact that the congressional debate fell on the same day as “The Call for Land” allowed CONTAG and the Union Central of Workers to join forces in Brasilia to demand agrarian reform and higher salaries at the same time.

At a meeting prior to Wednesday’s demonstrations, president Fernando Henrique Cardoso promised CONTAG president Manoel dos Santos that the government would expand low-interest loans for family farmers and create a fund to support them in the case of crop failures resulting from circumstances beyond their control, such as extreme weather.

Interest rates on farm loans would be reduced from 5.75 to three percent, with the principal adjusted according to the evolution of crop prices. In addition, existing debts would be refinanced at lower interest rates and more favourable payment terms, announced Raul Jungmann, minister of Agrarian Development.

Dos Santos called the announced measures a “partial victory.” He maintained they would “strengthen family farming,” but he asserted the movement would continue because the government has yet to respond to its fundamental claims for broad agrarian reforms and higher rural wages.

Dos Santos also pointed out that the government promised to increase family farming resources by just 30.8 percent, far below the 162 percent hike demanded by the rural workers.

CONTAG – which formally represents the nation’s 17 million rural workers, including formal employees and family farmers – rivals the Landless Movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra – MST) for leadership in the fight to obtain better social conditions for the rural population.

In the past, CONTAG at times allied itself with the government, winning little popular support with its conventional tactics. As a result, a more dynamic agrarian reform movement developed in the early 1980s, ultimately leading to the creation of MST in 1985.

Lately, however, CONTAG has begun to adopt the aggressive – and successful – strategies of its rival, including squatting on unproductive rural land, street marches, protests in Brazil’s major cities (such as ‘The Cry for Land’) and even takeovers of government buildings.

University studies show that most of the government’s land settlements carried out under agrarian reform programmes in the last 15 years, benefiting some 400,000 families, were the result of pressure from landless peasant movements.

The MST invasion of a dozen government ministries May 2 met with harsh police repression, ordered by the government, which imposed a set of measures to punish such protests.

CONTAG calls for the repeal of some of the government’s rural policies, such as the four-year ban on expropriating rural lands for settlement if the peasant movement has occupied them illegally, even when the land is out of production.

The Brazilian Constitution establishes that rural property must perform a social function, that is, it must be productive. If not, the land may be expropriated for agrarian reform purposes.

The rural union organisation calls for the settlement of a minimum of 250,000 peasant families each year. The government did not set a goal for this year, but minister Jungmann said the agrarian reform programme could benefit as many as 85,000 families annually, a target CONTAG and MST say is unfeasible given the government-imposed budget cuts.