Sao Paulo Metro Strike - Brazil Protests

[GiantMonkeyMan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-27761723


Sao Paulo police tear gas protesters

Brazilian riot police have used tear gas against protesters in Sao Paulo, three days before the World Cup opening game in the city's main stadium.

The BBC's Katy Watson at the scene said about 300 demonstrators were there and helicopters circled overhead.

The protest was called by Sao Paulo metro workers who are striking in support of a 12.2% salary increase.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has said she would not allow violent demonstrations to mar the World Cup.

Sao Paulo metro workers have been on strike since Thursday, creating traffic chaos in one of the world's most congested cities.

On Sunday, union members voted to continue to strike indefinitely despite a court order for them to return to work and a threat of dismissal by the state governor.
Am I just ignorant or has there really not been a thread about this yet? The protests and strikes in Brazil at the moment are huge news. There's that element of spontaneous protests and the organised working class militancy that's indicative of a huge movement in Brazil at the moment. Does anyone else have any decent links/analysis regarding what's going on in Brazil at the moment? (The BBC is hardly the best source).

[Comrade Ian]

Just finished putting together a video here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpixpPAVoXw&feature=youtu.be

I've been living here in Rio since June and working with the LER-QI (Brazilian section of the Fraccion Trotskista, same group as Argentinian PTS). What's been happening is indeed incredible, when I came here the group was small and mostly composed of students in Rio. Now, with a militant and solid orientation towards the workers movement we regularly have streetsweepers, petrol workers and more with us on marches and meetings. What's going on goes way beyond the protests the international media pays attention to, there's an incredible development of a whole layer of workers unbeholden to the bureaucracy or the reformist parties. Not explicitly communist or socialist yet of course, but it is the development of a real and meaningful, class conscious vanguard of workers.

[VivalaCuarta]

This is the LER-QI that used its position in the Metroviários union to break the Brazilian general strike on June 11 last year. See "Centrists who Break Strikes" ("Centristas que furam greves") from Vanguarda Operária. (http://www.internationalist.org/brasillerfuragrevemetrosp1308.html)

[newdayrising]

I don't have much time to write in length about it right now, but the most interesting thing about this wave of strikes is that workers are not accepting union orders and growing more aware of the union's true character.

It began with the street cleaners strike in Rio last year, who didn't accept the arrangement between their union and the city, kept the strike going and ended up with a much better deal.

It's a very interesting situation, overall.

[Devrim]

I was just watching the news on TV, and it was saying that the metro workers were going back to work, without suspended colleagues being reinstated, but would restart the strike if demands weren't met by Thursday.

Devrim

[newdayrising]

60 of them were fired today. The governor is trying to beat them into submission.

[BigJohnTheRed]

The world cup should never have been in Brazil FIFA's criteria should be overhauled to include social issues such as Poverty. The £6.5 billion spent on the stadiums and infrastructure would have been better used spent on the poorest people in the Society.