{"id":71135,"date":"2018-06-01T18:48:43","date_gmt":"2018-06-01T18:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/?p=9989"},"modified":"2018-06-01T18:48:43","modified_gmt":"2018-06-01T18:48:43","slug":"debate-with-the-mrt-on-the-teamsters-strike-in-brazil-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/debate-with-the-mrt-on-the-teamsters-strike-in-brazil-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Debate with the MRT on the Teamsters\u2019 strike in Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"

The conflict that confronts the truck owners (truckers\/teamsters) with the Temer government (with strike and blockades against the rise of the fuel price) became the core of the situation in the country. Brazil moves towards a growing paralyzation and the Teamsters already forced the government to step back (at least temporarily and partially) regarding the fuel price increase and to offer additional concessions. The impact of this conflict is a consequence that, in Brazil, 68% of the goods\u00a0are distributed by truck.[1]<\/a><\/em>
\nBy Alejandro Iturbe.<\/strong>
\n 
\nBig transportation companies accepted the government\u2019s proposal and do not participate in the protest anymore. Several national associations that group them did the same, like ABCAM. In this frame, the government carried out a repressive operation. However, the conflict holds the support of thousands of \u201cautonomous teamsters\u201d (owners of one or two vehicles) that camp to the side of the roads even when the blockades are dispersed.
\nThe demand expanded to other segments of small owners, like school transportation and taxi drivers. Besides, it acted as a trigger for the oil workers\u2019 strike (who had already expressed support to the Teamsters\u2019 strike) against the privatization of the Petrobras and its price policy (the Petrobras acts, in practice, like a private company).
\nDespite the major inconvenience that this conflict caused to the population in its already hard daily life, most of the population supported the Teamsters against the government: a survey carried out by the Methodus Institute in several cities shows that 87% of the Brazilian people supported the struggle.[2]<\/a>
\nIn this frame, the already weak government hangs by a thread, and it is a real possibility for it to fall. This reality posed the candidates of bourgeois parties before a very hard balance: how to sustain the government and, at the same time, differentiate from him to not clash against the opinion of their electoral bases.
\nIt also tested the left organizations, their analysis and policies in Brazil. In general lines, three positions were defined. The first one supports the struggle against the government and aims to develop it by incorporating the working class, its organizations and methods: it is the stand of the PSTU, the CSP-Conlutas and the National Oil Workers\u2019 Federation (FNP).
\nThe second one is the PT, CUT, and other organizations\u2019 (if we can still call them \u201cleft\u201d) that kept a silence that posed them as accomplices of the government. Now the PT is divided into those who support the repression to the Teamsters, like Rui Costa, governor of Bahia,[3]<\/a> and those who began supporting them (like Lindbergh Farias, Senator from Rio de Janeiro).[4]<\/a>
\nThe third is the \u201cNeither Temer nor Teamsters,\u201d as expressed by the Revolutionary Workers\u2019 Movement (MRT, Brazilian organization from the international current Trotskyist Fraction, led by the Argentine PTS). Even if their concrete policy is \u201cneither-nor\u201d, the MRT uses in its favor some arguments similar to those from the Temer government and segments of the bourgeois media that want to defeat the Teamsters, and to it, break the support by the population.
\nIn this article, we will approach this debate with the MRT. We do not do it because of the influence that this organization has in the country (pretty restricted, by the way) but because it expresses clearly the incorrect reasoning and conclusions common to a great part of the world left.<\/p>\n

What does the Teamsters\u2019 struggle represent for the MRT?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The starting point of the MRT\u2019s analysis is: \u201cThe Teamsters\u2019 blockades in the last week across the country brought to surface the disputes between several bourgeois fractions for parts of the State subsidies (which are, concretely, part of the gain extracted from workers) for their own profits, expressing two capitalist corporative interests: on one side, those who benefit from the liberation of the oil price (higher), and on the other, segments that benefit from the subsidised price (lower).\u201d[5]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> [Our translation.] So, from the objective point of view, to the MRT this is just an inter-bourgeois dispute in which we must not take a stand.
\nIn this inter-bourgeois dispute, the concessions given by the government to the Teamsters will turn against workers and the population: \u201cDespite the movement leadership\u2019s demagogic speech, what is proven with the agreement and general intention of the program raised is that their interest is based on the need for profit by the transporting and logistics companies. The tax exemption will take necessary resources from every worker, like unemployment insurance and public health, from where they will take most part of the subsidy to give to businessmen and capitalists from the cargo transport industry in Brazil.\u201d[6]<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>[Our translation.]
\nThis argument is similar to the one used by Temer and the Globo Network to isolate the population struggle. The content is, more or less, the following: \u201cIt is an inter-bourgeois dispute, but in it, the Teamsters\u2019 demand is a bit more reactionary, because it hits the workers directly.\u201d Like if Temer\u2019s fuel policy didn\u2019t! The \u201cneither-nor\u201d balance, then, is not so balanced anymore.<\/p>\n

A social analysis of truck owners<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The MRT and other organizations insisted a lot on the fact that the Teamsters\u2019 measure is a \u201cbosses\u2019 lockout\u201d and not a strike. To analyze this \u201csemantic\u201d debate (although with political consequences) we think it is necessary to analyze socially the truck owners segment.
\nIn 2016, the total fleet in the country was 1,434,888 trucks, according to a report by the ANTT (National Agency of Ground Transport]. From this total, 811,916 belonged to \u201cautonomous transporters\u201d (56.6%); 615,481 to transportation companies (42.9%) and 7,591 to cooperatives (5.5%).[7]<\/a>
\nThe \u201ctransportation companies\u201d segment includes small companies with 5 trucks; mid-size companies with some dozens or a hundred trucks; and big companies. The 10 top companies have fleets that go from 470 vehicles (Transportes Bertolini Ltda<\/em>.) to 2335 (Centro Oeste Log\u00edstica<\/em>). Among these big companies, some dedicate exclusively to transportation and logistic, while others are branches or subsidiaries of business conglomerates like the mentioned Centro Oeste Log\u00edstica<\/em> (part of the drinks group Petr\u00f3polis) and the JBS Transportes<\/em> (property of the homonymous group of meatpacking).
\nThe \u201cautonomous transporters\u201d are 631,960, that means that in average, they own 1.3 vehicles each, whose value goes between 24,000 and 36,000 dollars (although some models can cost up to 60 or 80 thousand). A study from a specialized magazine informs that 60% of \u201cautonomous teamsters\u201d did not go to high school, works an average of 11.3 daily hours, and has a clear month income of 1200 dollars (a minoritary segment, 15%, has an income that goes from 1500 to 3000 dollars a month).[8]<\/a>
\nSo, among truck owners, there are sectors of the high bourgeoisie and others that are middle and small bourgeoisie. But the wide majority of this branch of the economy is \u201cautonomous\u201d. We should characterize them as a petit-bourgeois segment, with low capital and self-exploited to obtain an average income similar to a specialized worker from cutting-edge industries (and so, a similar living quality).
\nIt is true that high and middle bourgeois segments encouraged the conflict and try to take advantage of it, but the base of the stoppage and blockades were the \u201cautonomous\u201d. So much that, after the government made the mentioned concessions and the companies withdrew, the process continued: the estimate is that there are about 600 blockades still (not counting the camps on the side of the road) and almost 300,000 \u201cautonomous\u201d are still in the conflict.
\nSo, although appealing to a Marxist explanation, to qualify this struggle as an \u201cinterbourgeois dispute\u201d or a \u201cbosses\u2019 lockout\u201d is a total simplification that takes to completely incorrect policies. The core of the struggle is a small bourgeois sector: the \u201cautonomous teamsters.\u201d
\nMarxism studied that, in different circumstances, the petit-bourgeois segments can oscillate, in their consciousness and actions, towards the right (bourgeoisie) or the left (working movement). In the first case, we should fight them to defeat them, divide them or neutralize them. In the second, we must support their actions and call the workers\u2019 movement to take part (with their methods and their own demands) and so achieve unity in struggle, led by the working class, against the bourgeoisie.<\/p>\n

\u201cA movement in favor of military intervention\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\n

To establish a revolutionary policy, the key is to define if the Teamsters\u2019 conflict is progressive or reactionary. We saw that, for the MRT, it is a conflict encouraged by a sector of the great bourgeoisie against another one, that brought behind itself a petit-bourgeois sector.
\nThis \u201cstructural\u201d characterization of a \u201creactionary\u201d conflict goes further in their political analysis: \u201cThe CUT and PT betrayal opens space for the right to channel the popular discontent. This is what allows it to be bosses\u2019 sectors the ones that appear as those who want to give a response to the crisis in the country, encouraging Teamsters blockades that raise the figure of Bolsonaro and defend a military intervention (\u2026). Before this situation, we need to say openly that the Teamsters\u2019 movement has a reactionary nature.\u201d[9]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> [Our translation.] Outside \u201cThe CUT and PT betrayal,\u201d this analysis, allegedly Marxist, contains a compact amount of errors and confusion.
\nThe errors begin with the definition of \u201creactionary wave\u201d and \u201cturn to the right\u201d of the political situation, that according to the MRT sign the political situation in Brazil for a few years now, and that expressed in the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and her replacement, Michel Temer, in 2016. The MRT, as most of the Brazilian left, characterized this fact as \u201ccoup\u201d and the Temer government as \u201cpro-coup,\u201d through which the right wing took the power. Several articles published in the PSTU and IWL sites debated with this view of the Brazilian reality.
\nNow, the MRT considers that Bolsonaro expresses a sector of the bourgeoisie that wants to carry out \u201ca coup to the coup,\u201d and that it got the support of petit-bourgeois and masses\u2019 sectors for this policy of replacing Temer government and the current political regime through a \u201cmilitary intervention\u201d. The political situation [to them] is so \u201cto the right\u201d that the alternatives are between a \u201ccivil pro-coup government\u201d and a classic military dictatorship (the Teamsters\u2019 movement would be a play of the latest). According to them, we are trapped between the right-wing and the extreme right-wing. Although the MRT does not go that far, this alternative between \u201csoft\u201d and \u201chard\u201d coup, by not having another alternative, leads a broad sector of workers and the people to choose the \u201clesser evil\u201d of Temer\u2019s government and support the repression to the Teamsters, as at least we will have elections this year. And other workers, more disgusted by the bourgeois political corruption, fall for the speech that \u201cBrazil needs an immediate military intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pro-coup Bolsonaro?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In several articles and statements by the PSTU and the IWL, we stood clearly against any type of \u201cintervention\u201d or military coup in Brazil, and we exposed our disposal to fight against it (in the broadest unity of action possible) if such thing were to happen or be a real threat. At the same time, we permanently fight the influence that the speech of a necessity of \u201cmilitary intervention\u201d might have among workers and the people, because of the crisis that the country lives in every level.[10]<\/a>
\nThe truth is that today, no serious or influent bourgeois sector (not either the Army command) bets to this type of \u201cmilitary intervention\u201d. Not even Jair Bolsonaro, a former military, current deputy by Rio de Janeiro and candidate for\u00a0the presidency in this year election. He is a disgusting person, a provoker, that diffuses an extreme-right, racist, male-chauvinist, homophobic ideology. Together with it, he has a hypocrite anti-corruption speech targetting all old Brazilian politicians. In the frame of the political crisis in the country and the growing disappointment with the bourgeois democracy, this allowed him to gain support not only by reactionary middle sectors but also workers\u2019 and popular sectors disgusted with the system. But, although he has an extreme-right speech, his political action so far has nothing to do with Fascism or with support to a military coup: he developed and continues developing through the inside of the current democratic bourgeois regime, with no intention to modify it.
\nThus, in 2016, Bolsonaro presented a bill project that proposes to punish with \u201cup to 4 years of prison<\/em>\u201d all those that participate in blockades like the ones carried out by Teamsters currently.[11]<\/a> Before the current conflict, he first tried to channel it demagogically, saying that if he were elected he would \u201cannul any monetary sanction that Temer imposes to the Teamsters,\u201d<\/em> and then clearly aligned with the Temer government and most of the Brazilian bourgeoisie: \u201cThe Teamsters\u2019 strike has to end. Neither I nor Brazil are interested in chaos.<\/em>\u201d[12]<\/a> [Our translation.]<\/p>\n

Pro-Coup Teamsters?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The MRT might argument that, beyond Bolsonaro\u2019s electoral real intentions, the \u201cautonomous teamsters\u201d took his agitation for real and now mobilize in favor of a \u201cmilitary intervention.\u201d Hence, their movement is still reactionary and we have to fight it. Let\u2019s analyze this possible explanation.
\nWe have said that, with a hypocrite speech, Bolsonaro channels the regime crisis and gains the electoral support of working and popular sectors (the surveys show over 20% of vote intention). Among those who vote, it is possible that there is a sector that believes that \u201conly a military intervention will save Brazil.\u201d Ultimately, it is almost certain that this vision expresses also among the \u201cautonomous\u201d Teamsters\u2019 sector.
\nTo us, this sector is visible and real, but because of the reception we\u2019ve had when we manifested our support in different pickets and blockades, plus the reports we\u2019ve received from others, as well as the journalistic articles and videos on the Internet, we think that this sector is a minority. At the same time, it is clear that the influence of the \u201cpro-Bolsonaro\u201d and pro-military intervention militants has been exaggerated by the government and the great media (like the Globo Network) to try and isolate the conflict and so, defeat it. From the \u201cleft\u201d and with a \u201cMarxist language,\u201d the MRT ends up contributing to that. In any case, there is a central question we need to ask: is the movement defined by the pro-Bolsonaro and pro-coup nature? To the MRT, this is evident, and so the \u201cautonomous\u201d Teamsters\u2019 struggle is the \u201cmain enemy.\u201d
\nTo us, on the contrary, this is a very progressive struggle by middle and low petit-bourgeois sectors, attacked by the government and great part of the bourgeoisie (and whose living condition is worsening) that confronts Temer with a demand that touches all popular sectors (the reduction of the fuel price). In this confrontation, they act like a trigger of a broader social process that, if it moves forward, it can overthrow the government through the struggle.
\nThis is the same analysis that more lucid bourgeois sectors do: \u201cIn midst of a generalized discontent with the government, the Teamsters\u2019 protests that stopped Brazil gained the support of several social sectors. And this is despite the inconveniences that the strike against the diesel price increase caused \u2013 from fuel and food shortage to [lack of] busses [and problems in] ports and airports, the mobilization is supported by the population. In several spots in the country, people take food, water and blankets to the Teamsters. The movement involved the citizens, app drivers and school transportation drivers. It even involved companies from the private food sector. There was also broad support in social networks.\u201d[13]<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>[Our translation.] Appart from the elements already mentioned in this analysis, there is also the oil workers\u2019 support and the strike called for a 100% State Petrobras.
\nIt is clear that this is a growing struggle against the Temer government, that threatens with overthrowing him. To the MRT, this means that we have to turn the \u201cred light\u201d on, because what is in course is a process that moves towards a military coup, that won the support of most part of the Brazilian people, and so we need to fight it with all our strength. To us, on the contrary, with all its contradictions, this is an extraordinary process that we need to support and encourage, from a class perspective. Thus, the PSTU militants encouraged the support to pickets, and we were part of the construction of the oil workers\u2019 strike, as well as of partial strikes in metal factories in San Jose dos Campos. Certainly, the MRT will accuse us of \u201cfunctional to the right-wing\u201d and \u201cpro-coup,\u201d as it has done already in the past.
\nUntil the Teamsters\u2019 strike, the MRT used to say that the main task was to fight against the \u201cpro-coup\u201d government of Temer. Now, that it began a mass process that might overthrow him, the MRT entered a labyrinth with no way out with their thesis of a \u201creactionary wave\u201d and the \u201cturn to the right of the political situation in Brazil,\u201d to which they add their stand of \u201ccoup against the coup\u201d (the danger of a \u201cmilitary intervention\u201d.) The truth is that the real \u201cmilitary intervention\u201d is the one ordered by Temer to repress the Teamsters. It is against that intervention that we need to struggle and unite strengths, not against the \u201cghost\u201d presented by the MRT.
\nIn the middle of such labyrinth, the MRT raises the following proposal: \u201cThe CUT needs to initiate, immediately, the oil workers\u2019 strike for the reduction of fuel prices and the privatization <\/em>[of Petrobras].\u201d[14]<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>[Our translation.] The demand for the CUT to call an oil workers\u2019 strike and the goal are correct, the in the frame of the MRT policy it implies some issues.
\nThe first and main one is that they raise this task ignoring, or better, standing against, the real process in which this fight is already happening (from the Teamsters\u2019 conflict on).
\nSecond, they forget that the CSP-Conlutas has been calling all Federation to call a general strike and their response has been negative. Instead, the Federations launched a communicate posing themselves as \u201cmediators\u201d between the government and the Teamsters. In other words, they do not want a general strike against Temer, and they work to end the Teamsters\u2019 struggle.
\nThird, the MRT \u201cforgets\u201d that the FNP unions (National Oil Workers\u2019 Federation, not part of the CUT) already launched the strike.
\nBasically, the MRT policy only serves to \u201ccry in the shoulder\u201d of the CUT and the PT (although they criticize them with words), not to the real struggle in course. And worst, it opposes the real struggle directly and so delivers it to the pro-Bolsonaro right-wing that claims to be fighting Temer.
\nWe want to end defending the PSTU policy before the process: \u201cIt is necessary to surround the strike and mobilization of Teamsters and oil workers with active solidarity. It is necessary to fight for 100% State Petrobras under workers\u2019 control instead of corrupt ones. Only like that the fuel and kitchen gas prices will reduce.<\/em>
\nWe need to organize demonstrations and stoppages where we can, uniting the struggle for reduction of fuel prices and nationalization of Petrobras to all other struggles. It is time for a General Strike to unify the struggle of workers and the poor population in the country, for the reduction of fuel and kitchen gas prices, but also against massive unemployment, to revoke the labor reform, and against any attempt to touch our Social Security.\u201d[15]<\/strong><\/a><\/em>
\nIt is with this program and in the frame of a strong criticism for their policy before the conflict, that the PSTU proposes: \u201cThese leaders should change their shameful stand and follow the call made by CSP-Conlutas to declare a General Strike, taking the government down together with this corrupt National Congress.\u201d[16]<\/strong><\/a><\/em>
\nThis stand before the Teamsters\u2019 conflict is part of the permanent policy of the PSTU: to call for a Brazilian workers\u2019 and people\u2019s rebellion that overthrows the Temer government and takes the workers to the power. In other words, the beginning of a socialist, workers\u2019 revolution that changes the capitalist socio-economic roots of the country and starts resolving the substantial problems of our exploited, oppressed people.<\/strong>
\n***
\nNotes:
\n[1]<\/a> https:\/\/oglobo.globo.com\/economia\/entenda-como-brasil-ficou-dependente-dos-caminhoes-22721989<\/a>
\n[2]<\/a> https:\/\/noticias.r7.com\/cidades\/correio-do-povo\/maioria-apoia-greve-dos-caminhoneiros-aponta-pesquisa-25052018<\/a>
\n[3]<\/a> https:\/\/www.bahianoticias.com.br\/noticia\/222446-anunciada-por-temer-rui-defende-acao-das-forcas-armadas-na-greve-dos-caminhoneiros.html<\/a>
\n[4]<\/a> https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lindbergh.farias\/videos\/1992810787396873\/<\/a>
\n[5]<\/a> http:\/\/www.esquerdadiario.com.br\/A-traicao-da-CUT-e-do-PT-abre-espaco-para-a-direita-capitalizar-o-descontentamento-popular<\/a>
\n[6]<\/a> http:\/\/www.esquerdadiario.com.br\/Temer-garante-bilhoes-em-subsidios-aos-patroes-do-transporte<\/a>
\n[7]<\/a> http:\/\/www.tribunapr.com.br\/noticias\/brasil-tem-frota-de-1434-milhao-de-caminhoes\/<\/a>
\n[8]<\/a> https:\/\/cargapesada.com.br\/2016\/02\/19\/renda-media-do-caminhoneiro-e-de-r-38-mil\/<\/a>
\n[9]<\/a> http:\/\/www.esquerdadiario.com.br\/A-traicao-da-CUT-e-do-PT-abre-espaco-para-a-direita-capitalizar-o-descontentamento-popular<\/a>
\n[10]<\/a> For example,\u00a0https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/no-to-military-intervention-stop-repressing-the-teamsters-general-strike-now\/<\/a>
\n[11]<\/a> https:\/\/www1.folha.uol.com.br\/poder\/2018\/05\/bolsonaro-e-autor-de-projeto-que-pune-com-ate-4-anos-de-cadeia-quem-obstrui-vias-publicas.shtml?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=noticias&utm_content=eqr<\/a>
\n[12]<\/a> https:\/\/www1.folha.uol.com.br\/poder\/2018\/05\/a-paralisacao-precisa-acabar-nao-interessa-a-mim-ao-brasil-o-caos-diz-bolsonaro.shtml<\/a>
\n[13]<\/a> https:\/\/economia.uol.com.br\/noticias\/redacao\/2018\/05\/26\/protestos-de-caminhoneiros-ganham-apoio-da-populacao.htm<\/a>
\n[14]<\/a> http:\/\/www.esquerdadiario.com.br\/CUT-precisa-iniciar-ja-a-greve-petroleira-pela-reducao-dos-combustiveis-e-contra-a-privatizacao<\/a>
\n[15]<\/a> https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/no-to-military-intervention-stop-repressing-the-teamsters-general-strike-now\/<\/a>
\n[16]<\/a> Ibidem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The conflict that confronts the truck owners (truckers\/teamsters) with the Temer government (with strike and blockades against the rise of the fuel price) became the core of the situation in the country. 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