Workers, trade unions and struggles for rights in Bahia at the end of the Second World War

Abstract

The conjuncture of the end of World War II and the process of democratization in Brazil reshaped the perspectives of political and social participation of the working class, after the impact of the repressive escalation that fell on their leaders and organizations during most of the Estado Novo. It was also a context of rapprochement between workers, discourse and labor legal and administrative bodies, especially the Regional Labor Precincts (DRTs), the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT), the Labor Justice and the corporative union structure. In this context, communists, labor and other trade unions both acted jointly and disputed positions in the workers' organization and claims. This article analyzes the ways in which the trade union leaders and sectors of the Bahian working class welcomed the discourses of the “war effort”, of the labor / laborism and of the “National Union”, trying to apprehend the demands, expectations and forms of mobilization of unionists and portions of Bahian working class in the struggle for rights, in the context of democratization.

Keywords

• workers
• second world war
• citizenship