Farmers, Workers: Thirty Years of New Rural Labor Unionism in Brazil

Abstract

"This article analyses the dependencies and conditionings net that supports the origin, evolution, and the current configuration of the new Brazilian rural syndicalism. The study rebuilds the characteristics of the social basis of the movement, the leaders profile, agenda, and behavior privileged in each of the three moments of the adopted time line. The research covers from the genesis, in middle seventies; through the constitution of the CUT, the crisis in the late eighties; up to the union with Contag, in the beginning of current decade. The study highlights the growing dissemination of specific organizations representing family based agriculture."