Brazil

World workers' news round-up

ARGENTINA Last month a judged ordered that a public notice of ownership be posted at the ceramics Zanon factory in Argentina. The notice would have allowed a venture capitalist or the previous owner to buy Zanon Ceramics for pennies. More than 470 jobs and the workers’ administration of Zanon could have been in danger, as a new owner could have immediately requested their eviction of the factory. However as no “interested parties” registered, the judge had to close the registry and it cannot be re-opened. Zanon workers and their supporters are now lobbying the courts to declare the factory...

Workers occupy a dozen farms

Members of Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) have occupied 12 farms in the state of Pernambuco, to try to pressure the government to speed up land reform. More than 5,000 families from the MST have moved on to the farms. The MST say the Lula government had failed to live up to its election promises to have settled 400,000 families by 2007. The government has settled less than a quarter of that number. The land reform budget has been in order to repay debts. Nearly half of all farmland in Brazil is owned by just 1% of the population. The MST occupies only unused land.

Mobilisations to tackle the failure of Lula's government

The Brazilian landless movement (MST) is to launch a series of mobilisations this year after criticising the failures of the Lula government. MST leader João Pedro Stédile said that after two years of Lula’s government, agrarian reform continues at a snail’s pace, mainly because of the neo-liberal economic policies of the government The MST will step up support for land occupations, which it says are necessary because of the quantity of unused land and the number of landless workers. Lula’s government has settled 60 thousand families in its first two years — less than even the final years of...

Activists surround central bank

More than 8,000 Brazilian landless activists surrounded the central bank on Thursday 25 November and threatened a big fight over land next year unless they get more public money to speed up land reform. Joao Pedro Stedile, a leader of the Landless Workers Movement (MST), said peasants could stage more land occupations if President Lula da Silva did not earmark more funds to expropriate and redistribute unused farmland, as the Brazilian constitution demands. Lula pledged to settle 400,000 families — or around 1.6 million people -- during his four-year term. After two years he has only created...

Brazilian strike wave

Workers’ strikes across Brazil are winning wage rises after years of declining purchasing power. More than 100,000 metalworkers in ABC, an industrial district in Sao Paulo where major steel, auto and other heavy industry is located, have begun to hold a series of stoppages in companies that refuse to agree to a 9.57% pay rise. Bank employees are continuing their two-week-long work stoppage, and pilots working for Brazil's VASP airline went on strike to demand the payment of back wages. Court workers in Sao Paulo returned to work last week after a 91-day strike. Oil and chemical industry...

New socialist party in Brazil

A new socialist party has been founded in Brazil, headed by militants expelled from the Workers' Party (PT). Below is an abridged translation announcing the formation of the party. The Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (P-SOL) was founded at a conference in Brasília on 5 and 6 June attended by 750 representatives from 22 states. Its initial impulse was given by the parliamentarians Heloísa Helena, Babá, Luciana Genro and João Fontes, the radicals who opposed the leaders of the PT and their government serving national and international capital, the bankers and the landowners, whose measures attack...

New socialist party founded in Brazil

A new socialist party has been founded in Brazil, headed by militants expelled from the Workers' Party (PT). Below is an abridged translation announcing the formation of the party. The Socialism and Freedom Party (el Partido Socialismo y Libertad (P-SOL) is born. P-SOL was founded at a conference in Brasília on 5 and 6 June attended by 750 representatives from 22 states. Its initial impulse was given by the parliamentarians Heloísa Helena, Babá, Luciana Genro and João Fontes, the radicals who opposed the leaders of the PT and their government serving national and international capital, the...

International notes: Brazil

The Workers' Party (PT) in Brazil has taken the first steps towards expelling socialists within the party who oppose government reforms. The move comes as Lula da Silva's government seeks to push through changes to the tax and pension system - slashing the pensions and other benefits for civil servants. Three representatives in Congress, Luciano Genro, Heloisa Helena and Joao Batista de Araujo, who are from different left tendencies within the PT, have been hauled up before the party's ethics committee, accused of engaging in "systematic opposition". In fact they had rightly joined with unions...

Workers of the world Round-up

India: 30 million strike Car workers strike in Brazil Repression of Chinese workers India: 30 million strike Thirty million workers in India went on 24-hour strike last week to protest over a Supreme Court ruling that said government employees had no right to strike because it inconvenienced citizens and cost the state money. Many trade unionists believe the ruling will ban all strikes, not only ones by government employees. Over 90% of the 1.5 million workers in the financial sector participated in the strike, including workers in insurance and the Reserve Bank of India. Car workers strike in...

New left party in Brazil

Brazilian socialists led by Heloísa Helena, the senator expelled from the PT (Workers' Party) for opposing the Lula government's pension cutbacks, have launched a new party. Who are we? We reject the disgraceful subordination to the financial system and consequential predatory speculation that Brazil was subjected to under the imposition of the neo-liberal model during the 1990's. We will never passively accept that the incessant profits of the international moneylenders should be greater than the national, just and democratic development of the Brazilian people through the accounts of...

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