Between the factory and the future

the trajectory of a working-class leadership in the face of changes in work and trade unionism

Abstract

This report presents excerpts from an interview with Wellington Messias Damasceno, conducted in August and September 2025 as part of the project Revisiting the Working-Class Condition: Workers in the São Paulo Automotive Industry at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century. Recently elected President of the ABC Metalworkers’ Union, Wellington recounts his professional and union trajectory, shaped by the legacy of labor struggles, vocational training at Volkswagen’s SENAI school, and early involvement in trade union activism. His testimony combines family memory, professional qualification, and political engagement while examining the transformations of industrial work driven by automation, robotics, and production reorganization. It also discusses the contemporary challenges faced by trade unions in response to technological, generational, and organizational changes, emphasizing the growing difficulty of maintaining workers’ engagement. Finally, the interview reflects on the future of the automotive industry, global productive restructuring, and their impacts on labor relations and workers’ organization.