Luta salarial no Ceará: conflitos trabalhistas na construção da Companhia Siderúrgica do Pecém (2012-2016)

Abstract

The strike lead by Companhia Siderúrgica do Pecém’s workers (2012-2016) motivated us to research on Trade Unions’ struggle, emphasizing an overview on real wages. Therefore, the research searches to criticize the relation between contemporary Trade Unions class struggle, wages and capital accumulation, assuming the unity between economy, politics and global capitalism features. In order to achieve our goal our theoretical compass is going to be Marx’s Capital ([1867] 2017). The beginning of this work is to stablish general guidelines of how wages are determined in the capitalist society. Consequently, we briefly present some general points that determine the capitalist way of organizing the social life, which are the basis of wages as expression of value of the work. Then this work will discuss the contemporary conditions of trade unions struggle and class for wages, following Iñigo Carrera’s (2003, 2007) approach. Then the research moves to analyze in a national and regional context the process of establishment of the siderurgic Vale S.A. by the company POSCO E&C. Describing the characteristics of the companies, of the trade union and the workers, we analyze the development of working conflicts during the construction and the salary agreements reached thanks to the union and workers demands. Thanks to the work of the trade unions and the mediation of the State, the nominal wages were gradually increased, nonetheless, because of poor conditions of work and the constant violations of agreements between the workers and employers, the real wages were negatively affected. Therefore, it is made a comparison of the real wages in order to evaluate if the labor of the workers were paid accordingly. This study intends to highlight the specific relevance of the income from the land, as well as the existence of excessive number of workers for the needs of the capital so that we can understand the wages in the Brazilian economy as well as in any Latin American economy. Following this path it is possible to identify the reasons why the capital accumulation in countries that supply natural commodities, like Brazil, makes the real wages of workers that execute jobs that require simple skills so low that they cannot even reach the minimum necessary to provide for their families.