From the rails to the courts: railway workers fighting for rights

Abstract

The growing organization of the working class between the 1950s and the 1960s is considered one of the factors that triggered the 1964 civil-military coup. Among urban workers, the railway class was severely repressed by the State and the Federal Railway Network: austerity, changes in labor legislation, control of the union movement and surveillance in the workshops. To fight against the systematic loss of rights, railroad workers on the Leopoldina Railway appealed to the Labor Court. This article seeks to analyze the impacts of the civil-military dictatorship on daily work, and the struggle of railroad workers in justice for the guarantee of their labor rights.

Keywords

• workers
• railway workers
• military dictatorship