The working-class condition revisited

automotive industry workers and union leadership

Abstract

This article discusses the results of research conducted with workers from three automotive companies in São Bernardo do Campo, in the Greater ABC region of São Paulo, the base of the ABC Metalworkers' Union. This text revisits these characters and a territory that were fundamental to worker mobilizations with the outbreak of the strike wave starting in 1978. Who are these workers today? How can we characterize the working-class condition? Can we speak of class fragmentation and its reconfiguration in the face of the structural, economic, technological, and political determinants of the capitalist restructuring of recent decades? How is this reflected in union action, its impasses, limits, and difficulties? To what extent has the relationship with work changed, and what implications does this bring to daily factory life? Seeking to answer this, the research focused on three automakers, using workplace observation, questionnaires, and interviews with leaders at the union and the Factory Union Committees (CSEs).