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$Unique_ID{bob00139}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Brazil
Chapter 4B.   State and Local Government}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{James D. Rudolf}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{political
military
government
state
brazilian
early
federal
labor
church
national
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{1982}
$Log{}
Title:       Brazil
Book:        Brazil, A Country Study
Author:      James D. Rudolf
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 4B.   State and Local Government

     The Brazilian system of government is federative in name only. A number
of developments, particularly the overwhelming economic power of the federal
government and provisions in the Constitution allowing federal authorities to
intervene in the affairs of state governments, have led to an ever-increasing
concentration of authority in federal officials at the expense of their
counterparts in state governments. In addition to the federal government,
governmental units in Brazil consisted of 23 states, three federal
territories, a Federal District (Brasilia) and, in 1980, 4,011 municipios (see
Glossary).

     The states are granted the power to create their own constitutions and
their own government; both must conform, however, to those found at the
federal level. The chief state executives, governors, were popularly elected
from 1946 to 1965 and indirectly elected by the state assemblies (which, in
effect, meant they were appointed by the federal president) from 1966 until
1982, when the first popular elections for governor in 17 years were held.
Each governor-whose term of office is four years-has a number of secretaries
of state, comparable to the ministers at the federal level. Each state also
has a unicameral state assembly, whose members are popularly elected for
four-year terms on the basis of proportional representation. Each state also
has an independent judiciary headed by an appellate court known as the Court
of Justice.

     The Constitution grants the states all powers not conferred on the
federal government or the municipios. In a few areas, most notably education,
the states have concurrent powers to legislate along with the federal
government. In fact, the real power of each state has depended on its economic
resources; states may levy taxes on sales (some 70 percent of their revenue),
inheritances, transfers of property, and exports. This power brings
significant clout to the governments of rich states, such as Sao Paulo, Rio de
Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul, whose governors may be major national public
figures (see fig. 1). Because economic power generates political power, the
political power is in turn used to garner a larger share of revenues and
services dispensed by the federal government. This system, of course, works to
the detriment of poorer states.

     Municipios are granted autonomy in the 1967 Constitution, although in
fact their authority has gradually been encroached upon by state governments
much as states have been by the federal government. Municipios are headed by
mayors (also called prefects) and quasi-legislative councils, most of which
are popularly elected for four-year terms. Under military rule, however, a
number of mayors and councilmen have been appointed by state governors with
the approval of the federal president. Formally justified in terms of
"national security" (mayors were appointed in border areas, areas of major
mineral deposits, industrial establishments, and military bases), the
appointments were actually used to ensure the control of major cities by
supporters of the government political party. Initially, almost 700 local
governments were thus appointed; by 1976 the total had been reduced to 175
appointed in key cities and all state capitals. Municipio councils vary in
size, though they may have no more than 21 members. Each municipio also has at
least one trial court, and most have a justice of the peace.

     There were three federal territories-Amapa and Roraima in the North and
Fernando de Noronha, a group of small islands in the Atlantic Ocean, northeast
of the city of Recife. All are remote and sparsely populated. Because of the
growing population and economic importance, Rondonia was upgraded from a
territory to a state in 1982. Municipal government is administered by a mayor
appointed by the governor of the territory who, in turn, is appointed by the
federal president. The governor of the Federal District is also a presidential
appointee. Brasilia also has an elected, 20-member legislative council
(four-year term) and its own system of courts.

Interest Group Politics

     Although in 1982 the nation's attention was focused on electoral
politics, a more timeless and, in many respects, more meaningful analysis of
Brazilian politics may be pursued by examining various interest groups and the
interaction among them. Because Brazil is a large and complex society, these
groups are many and varied and rarely are united in their political points of
view. Therefore, the following presents a simplification of Brazilian reality
for the sake of clarity: groups labeled "conservative" represent, for the most
part, those that have benefited from the period of military rule; those
labeled "liberal" represent groups that have sought fundamental changes in the
policies pursued since 1964.

Conservative Groups

The Military

     The armed forces have long played a pivotal role in the nation's
politics. As in other nations of Latin America, military officers acted as the
moderators of intra-elite disputes, at times temporarily assuming the reins of
government in order to facilitate the transfer of political power. On other
occasions officers assumed power through the force of arms, then
institutionalized a system of personal dictatorship (see The Vargas Era,
1930-45, ch. 1). The post-1964 military regime has been unique in that it has
been neither a short-lived transition nor a period of personalistic rule.
Rather, the armed forces have ruled as an institution, faithfully adhering to
hierarchical principles of discipline, promotions, and retirement in order to
preserve the institutional integrity of the officer corps. It has not been an
easy task. Most analysts point to inevitable strains on institutional
integrity created during almost two decades in power as the primary
explanation of the regime's pursuit of abertura, which is designed eventually
to remove the military from a direct, if not indirect, role in the political
system.

     The post-1964 military government was by no means run exclusively by
military officers. In late 1982, for example, only six of the 21 cabinet
members were active-duty officers. The armed forces retained control of the
government by holding key positions, most important of which, of course, was
the presidency. The presence of active-duty officers in other key positions,
most notably as the heads of the CSN, the SNI, and the president's Military
Household guaranteed that executive policymaking would reflect the wishes
of the military hierarchy who, given a compliant electoral college, would also
control the presidential succession (see The Executive, this ch.). By holding
high government positions, military officers secured financial security and
prestige for their institution, as well as access to patronage jobs for active
and retired officers, their families, and friends.

     An alternate source of power for military officers lay in the command of
troops. Some two dozen division generals, brigadiers, and colonels who command
troop units must be considered by policymakers. In the event of severe
disunity within the officer corps, these commanders have the power to use
armed force, or to threaten the use of force, in a coup d'etat (see
Administration, Organization, and Training, ch.5).

     In many nations military personnel are forbidden from taking part in
political activity. This is not the case in Brazil, where officers and
noncomissioned officers may vote and, under certain circumstances, run for
public office (see Constitutional Basis, ch. 5). This freedom, together with
the tradition of political activity within the Brazilian military, leads to a
high level of political expression and controversy within the armed forces.
Every attempt is made to shield such controversy from the public view in
order to preserve a public image of institutional integrity and harmony.
Nevertheless, controversy within the military high command frequently has
spilled into the open and, taken together, these incidents present a fairly
clear picture of the political concerns of the Brazilian armed forces.

     Interservice rivalries seem to be less of a problem in Brazil than in
other military-led governments. The parceling of the military budget
inevitably leads each service to extol its special need for a larger share.
In mid-1982, for example, the commander of the navy cited the Argentine
debacle against the British in the Falklands/Malvinas war as evidence of the
need for greater Brazilian naval power. In larger political issues, however,
the army has always prevailed over the navy and the air force. This is
evidenced most clearly by the fact that all five presidents in the 1964-82
period of the military regime came from the army.

     Analysts have usually discussed political factions within the
contemporary Brazilian military in terms of hard-liners (linhas duras) and
moderates. The meaning of these terms changed significantly, however, between
1964 and 1982. During the early years of the military regime, controversy
centered on the definition of the regime in terms of political economy. Most
of the officers who engineered the 1964 coup, led by the first military
president, General Castello Branco (hence sometimes called castellistas), were
considered moderates. Highly influenced by the United States as a result of
having fought as part of the United States Fifth Army in Italy during World
War II and being educated at Brazil's prestigious Superior War College (Escola
Superior de Guerra-ESG), which was founded in 1949 with the assistance of a
United States military mission, these officers were anticommunist,
developmentalist, and internationalist in political orientation. Their
hard-line opposition consisted of more authoritarian and nationalist younger
officers who called for stronger military participation in the institutions of
government and for development policies more immediately beneficial to
Brazilians, thus creating a strong national constituency. The retirement in
1970 of their leading spokesman, General Afonso Augusto de Albuquerque Lima,
led to the eclipse of this nationalist group of military hard-liners.

     During the 1970s the political lines within the military were drawn by
one's attitude toward the liberalization of military rule. The hard line was
defined by General Medici, whose 1969-74 term of office was the most
repressive period of military rule, with the least concern for civil
liberties. His successor, General Geisel, was a moderate who launched the
decompression under which the worst of the repressive apparatus was
dismantled. This ongoing controversy within the military hierarchy came to
a head with the process of naming Geisel's successor. After the forced
retirement of two hard-line members of the high command, generals Hugo de
Abreu and Silvio Coelho da Frota, Geisel was able to prevail and name a
fellow moderate, General Figueiredo, to succeed him. Figueiredo continued
the process of liberalization under the catch-word abertura, which opened
the political system to popular political expression and participation.

     Such strains within the High Command of the Armed Forces (Alto-Comando
das Forcas Armadas-ACFA) undoubtedly caused a modification in the process
of political liberalization. The apparent compromise between moderates and
hard-liners led to the continuation of the political opening, but under
slower and carefully controlled conditions. Such strains also reinforced the
need for the armed forces to retreat from its direct control of the
government in order to forestall further erosion of the military institution.
The governing role was increasingly seen as detrimental to its professional
role as a purely military institution. Furthermore, with the end of the
period of Brazil's "economic miracle" in 1974, governing was not as enhancing
to the public image of the armed forces. This was made clear in the elections
of 1974 and 1978, when the governing party lost the public mandate it had
held previously. Finally, the original justification of military rule, the
need to enforce national security in the face of domestic threats, no longer
rang true by the mid-1970s, when guerrillas had been defeated and liberal
politicians had lost any effective voice in public life.

     Despite the continuity of two successive moderate governments, hard-line
opposition continued to be voiced from within the armed forces. This fact was
brought to light most forcefully in April 1981 when two members of the army
intelligence service were implicated when a powerful bomb exploded prematurely
outside a stadium in Rio de Janeiro where a rally in favor of abertura was to
be held the next day. The government's apparent cover-up of the investigation
led to speculation that hard-liners in the military forced the concealment of
what had been an attempt by opponents of abertura to discredit the process
through the use of terrorism designed to create a hard-line backlash to the
liberalization (see Threats to Internal Security, ch. 5).

     In the early 1980s hard-line opposition to abertura was generally
estimated to be supported by one-fourth to one-half of the officer corps.
Colonels were commonly thought more likely to be hard-line than were generals.
Intelligence and police organizations were said to contain a relatively large
number of hard-line officers. This group remained opposed to the
reintroduction of civil liberties and political pluralism and felt that
conditions demanded a continuation of military rule beyond the timetable
prescribed by the Figueiredo government. Analysts agreed in 1982 that
hard-liners continued to carry influence, albeit reduced. Should key tests of
abertura, such as the 1982 elections or the 1984 contest for the presidency,
indicate that the High Command was losing control of the process, then
military hard-liners would seek a resurgence of their influence, thus forcing
a slowing or reversal of the moderate program of abertura.

Technocrats

     The political power of the technocrats (tecnicos)- the civilian elite of
planners, economists, and administrators at the top of Brazil's burgeoning
bureaucracy-is partly due to the sheer size of the organizations they oversee.
In addition, the above-average educational level, as well as family and
political connections, of senior civil servants makes the bureaucracy a
formidable pressure group. The bureaucracy also serves as the most important
channel for the exercise of influence by other interest groups, owing to the
weakness of such institutions as Congress and political parties that perform
such functions in other countries (see The Executive, this ch.).

     Even responsible government officials do not know the number of people
on the government payroll. A 1975 study estimated 500,000 for the federal
government and twice that figure for state and local government. The lure of
patronage and the growth of governmental functions since that time have
undoubtedly raised that figure still higher. The government does have a civil
service system whereby appointments are made on merit. The system does not
function in all areas of government, however, and in addition to patronage,
political loyalties often determine the fate of the civil servant. After the
1964 coup there was a widespread purge of career and appointed civil
servants whose political leanings did not match those of the military
government (see The Takeover, ch. 1).

     The technocrats, who emerged from the purge as the architects of Brazil's
post-1964 development strategy, were supposedly "apolitical." Guillermo
O'Donnell, in his brilliant 1973 study of the bureaucratic-authoritarian
state, defines the frame of mind of the technocrat: "Their training stresses a
technical problem-solving approach . . . the ambiguities of bargaining and
politics are hindrances to rational solutions; and conflict is by definition
dysfunctional . . . That which is 'efficient' is good . . . " Such a point of
view may have been apolitical in the pre-1964 context of liberal democratic
institutions, but in designing and maintaining the development policies of the
military regime-e.g., industrialization, export expansion, foreign investment,
political stability, low wages-the technocrats were, by necessity, thrust into
the political life of the nation as the primary civilian allies of the
military rulers.

     The myth of an apolitical technocratic establishment at the helm of the
nation's giant bureaucracy lasted as long as the combination of brutal
dictatorship and economic success kept the development strategy from becoming
a subject of national debate. The year 1974 proved to be a watershed on both
counts: it was not by chance that the beginning of the political
liberalization coincided with the end of the "economic miracle." The attack on
the technocrats came primarily from two quarters: nationalists (especially
businessmen), who saw the development strategy as favoring international
capital to the detriment of domestic private industry, and organized labor,
which had seen real wages fall precipitously after 1964. How to control
Brazil's endemic problem of price inflation also became a subject of political
controversy, as did the problem of Brazil's foreign debt in the early 1980s
(see Growth and Structure of the Economy, ch. 3).

     The bastion of the power of the technocrats was in the Planning
Secretariat of the Presidency (previously known as the Ministry of Planning).
Delfim Netto, who was named chief of the Planning Secretariat in August 1979
and continued to hold that post in late 1982, had become perhaps the most
powerful civilian in Brazil through his role as the nation's economic czar.
Delfim (as well as other, less powerful, technocrats) was given a large degree
of authority over economic policymaking, although ultimately his power
depended on the acquiescence of the armed forces. The increased economic
difficulties in 1982 and the election campaign of that year brought
unprecedented criticism of the government's economic policies, criticism that
ultimately found its way to Delfim. His anti-inflationary policies were
attacked from both sides of the political fence: conservatives, such as former
planning ministers Roberto Campos and Mario Henrique Simonsen, called for
tougher deflationary policies, while liberals, such as Celso Furtado,
criticized Delfim's policies as causing unnecessary recession and called for,
among other measures, a renegotiation of the foreign debt.

Industrialists and Landowners

     Political groupings of industrialists and landowners in Brazil are not
as powerful as one might expect in a nation with such vast economic resources.
The largest organizations-the National Confederation of Industries, the
National Confederation of Commerce, and the Brazilian Rural Confederation-were
originally formed as part of the corporatist structure created under the
tutelage of President Vargas. Forty years later these organizations retained
their corporatist flavor and their dependence on the state in an essentially
paternalistic relationship. Some analysts argue that post-1964 government
policies with respect to such issues as wages and land reform are testimony to
the influence of the groups. In other areas-particularly the growing
importance of the state and of foreign economic interests-the interests of
Brazilian businessmen have clearly not been served, however. The preservation
of old systems of land tenure is attributed more to the electoral sphere-where
the rural tradition of coronelismo guides peasants to vote the dictates of
large landowners-than to the effectiveness of the Brazilian Rural
Confederation (see Rural Society, ch. 2; Electoral Politics, this ch.).

     In response to the ineffectiveness of traditional interest groups in
combating the inroads made by government corporations and multinational
corporations into areas of production previously held by the private sector,
a number of new businessmen's associations were formed that by the early 1980s
had proved to be more adept at lobbying government policymakers. Three of the
more powerful groups were the Federation of Industries of the State of Sao
Paulo, the Brazilian Association for the Development of Basic Industry, and
the National Federation of Banks. These organizations  were small, but they
were well funded and highly visible in Brasilia and in the national press.

     Industrial and landowning interests also retained a direct role in
policymaking in semiautonomous enterprises (autarquias), such as the Brazilian
Coffee Institute and the Sugar and Alcohol Institute. These and similar
autarquias, which function to promote exports and set prices, standards, and
quotas for exports, are staffed by civil servants and by representatives of
the relevant industries.

Liberal Groups

     In the early 1980s the Roman Catholic Church and a number of incipient
independent labor unions were by far the most significant liberal interest
groups. Students were the most radical, but their importance diminished
markedly after being severely repressed during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
A number of less significant organizations, many of which emerged during the
post-1974 liberalization, could also be labeled as representing interests in
the "liberal" camp. Organizations of women, which in the early 1960s had
precipitated demonstrations that helped galvanize opposition to the Joao
Goulart regime, assumed a liberal flavor in the 1970s as they sought equal
rights for women, a quickened pace of liberalization under the military
regime, and just solutions to the economic dislocation created by growing
inflation. Blacks also sought equal political, economic, and cultural rights
within a number of organizations, the most important of which was the United
Black Movement Against Racial Discrimination. The Indigenous Missionary
Council, an organization of the Catholic church, was formed in 1974 to defend
the rights of indigenous people in Brazil's interior. The Brazilian Order of
Lawyers was a professional organization interested in improving the system of
justice and has often addressed the regime's abuses of human rights.
Brazilians have long been noted as highly individualistic, however, and such
organized pursuits of equal rights concerns were relatively new phenomena.
Their future effectiveness was probably dependent on continued political
liberalization.

The Church

     The church in Brazil has been in the forefront of the growing activism of
the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America since World War II. The major organ
of this activist role has been the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops,
which was created in 1952 and initially led by Bishop Helder Camara (later
named archbishop of Recife and Olinda). The majority of Brazil's bishops deny
that their activities are specifically political in nature; rather, they say,
the cause of social justice for the poor and the victims of discrimination is
a pastoral prerogative and a fulfillment of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless, in Brazil (particularly during the 15 years following the 1964
coup) such activities inevitably became political in nature, given the lack of
political institutions legitimately representing these interests. During the
1970s political observers all pointed to the church-because it was unique as
an institution that enjoyed a degree of immunity from government repression-as
the most effective voice of opposition to the regime. By the early 1980s
abertura had changed that role; if and when the fledgling political parties
and interest groups become stronger, the direct political involvement of the
church may become redundant.

     The political leanings of church officials, of course, are by no means
homogeneous: sentiments vary from those who openly advocate socialism as a
solution to income inequality (detractors of leftist prelates, such as
Archbishop Camara and Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, archbishop of Sao Paulo,
have dubbed them "red bishops") to ultraconservative bishops associated with
the Sao Paulo-based Brazilian Society for the Defense of Traditional Family
and Property (an anticommunist lay organization founded in 1960 by Plinio
Correa de Oliveira). Disagreement did occasionally surface, particularly with
respect to the appointment of new bishops; but on the whole, the National
Conference of Brazilian Bishops has managed to achieve a high degree of
agreement and, after 1967, consistency in its public pronouncements against
the military government.

     Shortly after the coup the bishops issued a statement in favor of "the
Armed Forces [which] responded in time and prevented the implantation of a
Bolshevik regime from being consummated in our land." This was a reflection
of the anticommunist sentiment of the majority of the church hierarchy, which
sought to patch up relations with the new government as well as to diminish
the influence of the so-called Catholic left, whose adherents had worked
closely with radical student and rural labor organizations during the early
1960s. The position of the church soon began to change, however, as its
personnel became victims of increased government repression. Harassment of
church officials identified with opposition to government policies, charges
of subversion against some, the expulsion of foreign priests, and the arrest
and torture of numerous laity engaged in church activities increasingly led
the Catholic hierarchy to oppose the government in order to defend the
sanctity of the religious institution. In November 1967 the same Central
Commission of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops that only three
and one-half years earlier had praised the new military government issued a
document entitled "Why the Bishops Cannot Remain Quiet," in which they
strongly criticized the government.

     By 1970 such public expressions of the church went beyond self-defense
to address the human rights concerns of the public as a whole. In that year
the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops first publicly criticized
torture, illegal imprisonments, judicial restrictions, and denials of habeas
corpus. Human rights became a major concern of Cardinal Arns, and the
Commission of Justice and Peace, an agency of his archdiocese, became the
principal organization actively defending the victims of the regime's
security apparatus during the early and mid-1970s. Church-led protests over
the deaths of Vladimir Herzog and Manoel Fiel Filho in 1975 led to the
definitive end of the practice of torture by government security agencies
(see Threats to Internal Security, ch. 5).

     A May 1973 document entitled "I Heard the Cries of My People," issued by
17 members of the church hierarchy in the impoverished Northeast, signaled the
revival of the church in the role of social critic. It criticized the economic
miracle, arguing that the regime's economic program had led to an increased
concentration of income, structural unemployment, malnutrition, and inadequate
housing, education, and health services for the poor. This role was maintained
and refined during the next decade, when church officials became the chief
activists on behalf of the nation's poor. In urban areas the church worked
with labor unions and with residents of the growing shantytowns, called
favelas (see Urbanization, ch. 2). In rural areas church officials concerned
themselves with questions of land tenure and inadequate social services.
Although the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops and other forums of the
church hierarchy continued to speak out on such issues, perhaps the most
politically significant vehicles for the church's social role were the
grass-roots organizations known as ecclesiastically based communities.

     First appearing in the early 1970s in the wake of Vatican II in order to
relieve the workload of overburdened priests, the  ecclesiastically based
communities grew in number to an estimated 80,000 by 1980, having a
membership of some 1.5 million. Attached to local parishes, most have purely
religious functions, such as prayer and Bible study, although according to
longtime observer Thomas G. Sanders, a large and apparently increasing number
are "assuming an active role in articulating group interests, making changes
in the community, and putting pressure on politicians and public officials to
promote policies benefiting their interests." During the first decade of their
existence, the ecclesiastically based communities limited their concerns to
local issues, and there was little linkage between the various organizations.
Political observers took note, however, of their rapid growth and of the
larger potential of the ecclesiastically based communities, which by the early
1980s were the most extensive grass-roots organizations in the nation.

Labor

     Labor unions in Brazil, estimated to encompass 10 to 15 percent of the
work force, were, by and large, weak institutions. On only two occasions in
its modern history-the early 1960s and the late 1970s-has organized labor been
an effective, independent voice of the working class. Otherwise, labor unions
have displayed a remarkable continuity since the 1930s, when they were
reorganized under the paternalistic, corporate controls of President Vargas'
Estado Novo (see The Estado Novo, ch. 1). Labor's growing independence from
state controls during the 1960-64 period was seen by some observers as one
cause of the political crisis that culminated in the 1964 coup d'etat. After
the coup the military government reasserted and refined the corporatist
system, whereby the state controlled wages, union leadership, and finances and
made strikes essentially illegal. Unions were not eliminated as they were
under other South American authoritarian regimes, but activities outside those
sanctioned by the government were repressed. Many analysts at the time claimed
that authoritarian control of organized labor-enforcing low wages in a growing
export-oriented industrial sector-was the key to the viability of the
development scheme pursued in these years. High wages, they argued, would cost
Brazil its competitiveness in world markets. The 1978-79 period brought a
reawakening of independent union activity, but the next three years saw
reversals and left doubts among those who had hoped that the growth of
independent and representative labor unions would keep pace with the process
of political liberalization.

     The corporatist nature of labor unions was reflected in labor
legislation, which in the early 1980s still defined the union as an "organ of
collaboration of the State." Unions were supervised and regulated in detail by
the Ministry of Labor; comprehensive labor legislation guaranteed benefits,
such as minimum wages, maximum working hours, and paid vacations; unions were
financed by the government (from a union tax collected from workers); and
labor courts, rather than collective bargaining, settled labor disputes.
Perhaps the most pervasive instrument of state influence, however, lay in the
control of union leadership. According to Sanders, the traditional union
leader, known as a pelego, "has the mentality of a bureaucrat or
administrator, and he is more concerned with maintaining the confidence of
employers and government officials than that of the workers whom he
theoretically represents. He is loyal to the system because of the access it
provides to influence, gifts, and positions in the labor courts and union
hierarchy." On numerous occasions since 1964, the Ministry of Labor has
removed more independently minded union leadership in order to reinstitute the
system of peleguismo.

     Competition among different unions for membership was precluded by law.
Only one union per category of worker (profession) could be formed in any
locale. Five or more unions in the same sector of the economy could form a
federation; a minimum of three federations was required to establish a
national confederation. A national organization of workers from a variety of
crafts or skills was forbidden. Peleguismo dominated the leadership of the
federations, the confederations, and the smaller unions. The independent
leadership that emerged first during the early 1970s as the trade union
opposition (oposicao sindical) then blossomed during the late 1970s, was found
largely in local unions in the major urban areas.

     The most prominent of these leaders was Luis Inacio da Silva (known
popularly as "Lula"), president of the metallurgical workers union in the Sao
Paulo suburb of Sao Bernardo. Often compared to Poland's Lech Walesa, Lula was
the principal leader of several hundred thousand strikers who demanded that
wages lost from the government's falsification of the inflation index (which
determined wage increases) in 1973 be granted retroactively. In addition to
metallurgical workers, strikers came to include teachers, television workers,
construction workers, garbage collectors, and medical personnel; strikes
spread from Sao Paulo to workers in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas
Gerais, Espirito Santo, Parana, and Acre. The strikes peaked in 1978 and 1979;
in the latter year, a week after the inauguration of President Figueiredo, the
strike in Sao Paulo was declared illegal, and Lula was placed under arrest.

     The long-dormant National Confederation of Agricultural Workers
(Confederacao Nacional de Trabalhistas Agricola-CONTAG) also became active
during this period. In October 1979 some 18,000 sugarcane workers in
Pernambuco struck and won large salary increases and a number of improvements
in benefits and working conditions. The landowners failed, however, to observe
the new contract, and much of the effort of CONTAG continued to be directed
toward making landowners uphold these and other legal requirements, such as
minimum wages and social security payments. Rural labor had an important ally
during the late 1970s and early 1980s in the Catholic church's Pastoral Land
Commission, which worked directly with peasants and rural proletariats,
particularly in growing concerns over questions of land tenure (see Rural
Society, ch. 2).

     The lack of militancy displayed by workers from 1980 through 1982 was
attributed to a variety of causes. Slowed growth, combined with accelerated
inflation, led to greater government willingness to repress wage demands;
workers, aware of the growing pool of unemployed potential strikebreakers,
were more cautious. Also, a new wage law in 1979 partially addressed the
worker dissatisfaction of the previous years by making wage adjustments based
on inflation and increases in productivity every six months rather than
annually. Yet another factor was the growing division among the union leaders.
After the successful 1979 strikes the new leadership (independent of the
traditional system of peleguismo) had united under the banner of the Labor
Union Unity (Unidade Sindical). The subsequent growth of a number of competing
political parties, however, each vying for the allegiance of organized labor,
led to the splintering of Unidade Sindical along party lines. It was reported
in 1982 that the major division was between moderates, who retained the name
of Unidade Sindical, and the more militant leaders, linked to Lula's Workers'
Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores-PT), who called themselves the authentics
(autenticos).

Students

     Like students throughout much of Latin America, university students in
Brazil have been the most radicaly leftist of organized interest groups. This
was particularly true during the mid-1960s, when People's Action (Acao
Popular-AP), a radical student group organized in 1962, worked closely with
the Catholic left in the organization of workers and peasants until the coup
and subsequently was in the forefront of organized opposition to the military
regime. Institutional Act Number 5 of December 1968 and Decree-Law 477, issued
two months later, prohibited all political activity by students or faculty and
effectively quashed student activism until 1977. In the atmosphere of
political liberalization that year, students organized protest demonstrations
unlike anything seen in Brazil for almost a decade. During the next five
years, large public demonstrations by students were not in evidence, although
under the political liberalization of abertura leftist students revived the
old National Union of Students (Uniao Nacional dos Estudantes-UNE) that had
been declared illegal in the wake of the 1964 coup.

     Like so many of Brazil's associational groups, the UNE had been founded
during the Vargas regime as part of the corporatist structure under the aegis
of the state. During the Second Republic (1946-64) the UNE came under a
variety of influences, and by early 1964 it was dominated by the radical AP.
Both groups were officially abolished after the coup, but students reorganized
clandestinely and in 1966 and 1968 spearheaded the two largest protest
demonstrations during the early years of the military regime. The government
formed its own student organization, but it failed to attract supporters and
was abolished in 1968. The repression of late 1968 and early 1969 effectively
put an end to organized student activism for a period of eight years, although
the initial impact was to drive many students into the revolutionary guerrilla
groups that plagued Brazilian cities between 1968 and 1972. A 1973 study by
Amnesty International reported that students accounted for some 40 percent of
the victims of torture and assassination in Brazilian prisons during the early
1970s.

     The decline in the quality of higher education during the military regime
has been widely reported: between 1960 and 1980 enrollment grew from 100,000
to 1.5 million, while the percentage of the federal budget allocated to all
levels of education went from 9.2 percent in 1961 to 13 percent in 1964, then
declined steadily until 1977, when the percentage was a mere 3.6. By 1980 the
federal education budget had reportedly grown to over 5 percent of the total,
though tuition and fees in private universities (accounting for over half the
total university enrollment) were also rising dramatically (see Education, ch.
2). When organized student protests reemerged in Sao Paulo in March 1977, it
was these deteriorating conditions that provided the initial spark. Again in
September 1980 all 57 of the nation's public and private universities went on
strike for several days to protest increased fees and the general
deterioration of university conditions.

     Student activism with respect to larger political issues during the late
1970s and early 1980s was significantly muted compared with the heady days of
the 1960s, however. Between May and August 1977 a number of demonstrations
were organized (some of which turned violent) to protest police repression of
the student activists. Demonstrators also called for the release of all
political prisoners and the restoration of political liberties. The
universities were relatively quiet during the next five years. The UNE was
formally reconstituted in 1979, and its delegates endorsed a charter pledging
to "fight against oppression" and to support "the demands of the working
class." Several thousand students attended the annual congresses of the UNE
in 1979 and 1980. The leadership elected at each represented a variety of
leftist positions.