The Free Trade Area of the Americas in the Long Crisis of Brazilian Labour

Abstract

This article examines the significance of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) from the point of view of Brazilian workers in the hemispheric movement against the accord. This movement constituted a moment when workers positioned as competitors in the regional labour market attempted to organize in such a way as to confront the structural conditions of labour that have accompanied neoliberalism. It also illustrates the need for instruments of struggle that recognize both the particularity of Southern working class formation, and the interdependent relation between the well-being, wages and working conditions of workers in the Global North and South.

تتناول المقالة أهمية منطقة التجارة الحرة في الأمريكتين من وجهة نظر عمال البرازيل في الحركة المناهضة للاتفاق في النصف الغربي من الكرة الأرضية. وقد مثَّلت هذه الحركة لحظةً حاول فيها العمال، من مواقعهم كمنافسين في سوق العمل على المستوى الإقليمي، إلى تنظيم أنفسهم على نحو يكفل التصدي لللأوضاع الهيكلية للعمل التي صاحبت التوجه النيوليبرالي. كما تلقي المقالة الضوء على الحاجة إلى أدوات نضالية تراعي خصوصية تكوين الطبقة العاملة في بلدان الجنوب، من جهة، والعلاقات المتبادلة بين مستوى رفاهية العمال وأجورهم وظروف عملهم في بلدان الشمال والجنوب، من جهة أخرى.

요약문

이 논문은 아메리카 자유무역지대(FTAA)의 의미를 이 협정에 반대하는 남반구 운동의 브라질 노동자들의 관점에서 검토한다. 이 운동은 지역 노동시장에서 경쟁자로 위치 지워진 노동자들이 신자유주의를 동반하는 노동운동의 구조적 조건에 대응하는 방식으로 조직하고자 시도하는 계기였다. 또한 그것은 남반구 노동계급 형성의 특수성과 글로벌 남반구와 북반구의 노동자들의 웰빙, 임금과 노동조건 간의 상호 의존성을 인식하게 하는 투쟁 수단의 필요성을 보여준다.

RESUMEN

Este artículo examina la importancia del área de libre comercio de las Américas (ALCA) desde el punto de vista de los trabajadores brasileños, en el movimiento hemisférico contra el tratado. Este movimiento constituyó un momento cuando los trabajadores consolidados como competidores en el mercado laboral regional, intentaron organizarse de tal forma, como para afrontar las condiciones estructurales del trabajo que ha acompañado al neoliberalismo. También ilustra la necesidad de instrumentos de lucha que reconocen tanto la particularidad de la formación de la clase trabajadora del hemisferio sur, y la relación interdependiente entre el bienestar, los salarios y las condiciones laborales de los trabajadores en los hemisferios norte y sur.

Keywords:

• neoliberal crisis of labour
• general law of accumulation
• dependency
• global working class
• Brazil

Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank the organizers and participants of the 2011 ‘Trade Unions, Free Trade and the Problems of Transnational Solidarity’ workshop in Nottingham, and the two anonymous reviewers, for valuable feedback on this article. All translations in this text, and related errors, are my own.

Notes

1 Here, imperialism denotes the current phase of global capitalist accumulation, which dates to the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In this period, whether predicated on the internationalized circuits of finance and monopoly capitalism described by Lenin, or hegemonic circuits of productive and finance capital in the post-World War II period of globalization, internal social relations in peripheral nations are geared towards the global extraction and accumulation of surplus value, despite their formal independence (Bresser Pereira, 1984, pp. 50–4). While there was no singular interpretation of the FTAA among activists, for the purposes of this article, the FTAA is understood to have been a project of neoliberal imperialism, intended to deepen the dependent relationship between the ostensibly sovereign nations of Latin America and North American capital.

2 In fact, Marini argues that super-exploitation intensifies in moments of rapid accumulation; coexisting with, rather than being displaced by, ‘modern’ modes of extracting surplus value (i.e. techniques associated with relative surplus value, which rely on technical improvements to labour productivity) (1978, pp. 63–4; also Sotelo Valencia, forthcoming, p. 5; cf. Cardoso & Faletto, 1979; Furtado, 2007); witness, for example, the current revival of super-exploitation and forms of forced labour in the very sectors associated with Brazil's commodities boom, including the sugar/sugar-based ethanol and steel sectors (Latimer, 2012).

3 Interview with ‘Ivete’, technical advisor at the Escola da CUT-São Paulo and the National Confederation of Chemical Workers, São Paulo, 26 June 2006.

4 See Note 3.

5 The questions included: should the Brazilian government sign the FTAA accord (to which 98.33% voted no in response); should the Brazilian government continue participating in the FTAA negotiations (to which 95.94% voted ‘no’); and should the Brazilian government turn over part of our territory, the base in Alcântara, to US military control (to which 98.59% voted ‘no’).

6 Interview with M. T. Chaves, former metalworker and historian, Jundiaí, 18 June 2006.

Additional information

Amanda Latimer is a PhD candidate in social anthropology at York University, Toronto.