
Metalworkers’ leadership in São Paulo: social profile and trajectories of labor activism formation
Estudos de Sociologia, Araraquara, v. 31, n. esp. 1, e026006, 2026. e-ISSN: 1982-4718
DOI: 10.52780/res.v31iesp.1.21080 18
Then I was going to the cafeteria, I was there eating [...] a debate came up
about PLR [Profit and Results Sharing] [...] and then I started pouring out all
my common sense at the table, like: “Look, this PLR thing, the union is a
bunch of thieves!” [...] “And another thing, a bunch of old guys with white
hair shouting into the microphone [...]”, and so on. [...] The person turned to
me and said: “Wow, man, that’s great! You’re a critical person, aren’t you?”
[...] “Have you ever thought about going to the union?” I said: “Are you crazy,
man! [...] Those guys, a bunch of mafia people, thieves. They’ll kill me there.
I can’t get into that.” [...] He said: “Nice to meet you. Moisés, from the Factory
Committee” (Interview with a leader holding a high-ranking position at the
Confederação Nacional dos Metalúrgicos da CUT [National Confederation of
CUT Metalworkers] – CNM-CUT, Feb. 21, 2025).
The excerpts make it possible to observe that activism is built through gradual processes
of political socialization, in which the practical experience of representation and everyday
confrontation precede explicit ideological adherence. As the accounts show, initial resistance
gives way to progressive trajectories that become professionalized through participation in the
CIPA, the Factory Committee, or the Company Union Committee, culminating in entry into
union leadership.
In addition, some trajectories are shaped by prior experiences of activism outside
metalworker unionism, such as participation in religious, social, or union movements in other
sectors, including in rural areas:
My father was the first worker to join, in that region, the rural workers’ union
and, over time, my brother began to be active among rural workers and
became President of the Union [...] they carried out many struggles, won land
[...] the worker [...] suffered many threats [...] so there is... there was already
a certain inspiration from the union movement; this question of fighting for
workers already ran somewhat in our veins (Interview with member of the
Executive Board of SMABC, June 12, 2024).
Now bringing it together [...] until then [...] my political action in society was
very disconnected from political action inside the factory. It was liberation
theology, the Pastoral da Terra [Land Pastoral], the Pastoral da Criança
[Children’s Pastoral], the Pastoral da Juventude [Youth Pastoral], and so on
[...] but I did not understand this connection with the world of work, and from
then on, I began to understand it (Interview with a leader holding a high-
ranking position at CNM-CUT, Feb. 21, 2025).
These trajectories suggest that the formation of dispositions associated with a militant
habitus, in the terms proposed by Rombaldi and Tomizaki (2017), may begin through contact
with situations perceived, in the interviewees’ narratives, as forms of injustice in everyday labor
life. In this process, concrete experiences of exploitation, conflict, and contestation within labor
relations tend to function as initial moments of political socialization, through which workers