In the late 70s, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva led huge crowds of workers to the streets demanding wage increases indexed to inflation. At the time, under the military regime, strikes were forbidden to such an extent that they even cost Lula his arrest, but they were important in giving strength to the struggles that pushed for the democratization of the country.
Over thirty years later, the scenario has radically changed. The former trade unionist Lula works behind the scenes of the government of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil has meanwhile become the sixth largest economy in the world and strikes are protected by the 1988 Constitution. However, the lockouts have never been regulated and every year wild unrest shakes the country, seriously slowing down the run of the green-gold giant and frightening foreign investors.
In fact, strikes continue indefinitely, with negotiations that can last for weeks or months, causing serious problems for citizens and businesses. Only this year have university professors, policemen, civil servants and postal workers gone on strike. Last in order of time, which broke out this week, that of the banks to which the employees of over 7 thousand agencies of public and private institutions adhere, a third of the total: exactly one year ago, 46% of the banking institutions had lowered the shutters for 20 days.
Also during the week, the lockout of postal employees in at least 20 states of the Brazilian federation began, also in this case for an indefinite period. However, the strike of university professors is the longest-running: launched last May, it involved 57 federal universities out of the total 59 and is still ongoing in some locations and if the negotiations go through, it will only be concluded in October.
The lockout of Federal Police officials and other hundreds of thousands of state employees has also continued since July, around 250 thousand, just under a third of the total: from ministry officials to those of the revenue agency, from research institutes to supervisory bodies. Last February, the strike by the entire category of the Military Police had brought chaos to Salvador and throughout the State of Bahia with the explosion of crime and the occurrence of dozens of homicides in a few days precisely due to the absence of patrols for the streets.
With the latest claims, sand the government of Dilma Rousseff accepts the requests of the state, the costs for the coffers of the state would immediately rise by tens of billions of euros. An enormous sum, so much so that in recent weeks even former president Lula had to recall that "it is the right of workers to strike, but it is the right of the government whether or not to implement their requests" and that "the people must understand that the government he doesn't have all the money he is thought to have and that resources are limited".
More than economic resources, what appears necessary is more of a regulation of the right to strike to prevent some categories from bringing an entire country to its knees, causing serious damage to the rest of the population.
The situation it has become so unsustainable that even President Dilma allowed herself to be convinced of the need to set limits, such as guaranteeing essential services, and more generally regulating the right to strike. A bill is being drafted and should land in the green-gold Congress in the coming weeks for discussion and, many hope, approval.
