Rio teachers strike sharpens Brazilian protest scene.
| Autor | Scruggs, Gregory |
Tour months after the June protests in Brazil brought hundreds of thousands to the streets in a national airing of grievances, such mass demonstrations persist albeit on a smaller, more-focused scale (NotiSur, Aug. 23, 2013). At the same time, marches continue to conclude with violent clashes between police and protesters. This trend is a result of both a tougher line by authorities as well as a proportionally larger use of black-bloc tactics, whereby masked protesters wearing black pursue direct action to destroy symbolic physical property such as banks, media vehicles, and police cars. The outcome has been widespread destruction of public and private property, mass arrests of civilians, injuries to protesters, and chaotic scenes on the streets of Brazil's major cities, principally Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Brasilia.
While Brazilian Independence Day on Sept. 7 was the impetus for one of the larger rallies since June, the month of October showed the most sustained protest activity. Specifically, a teachers strike in Rio sparked a series of well-attended marches, with sympathy crowds in the thousands in Sao Paulo and Brasilia and the hundreds in dozens of other cities.
In addition to the weekly marches in downtown Rio, including tens of thousands on Oct. 15, Teachers' Day, around 1,000 protesters affiliated with the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto (MTST) attempted to invade Sao Paulo's City Council building in a separate political action on the same day to demand more affordable housing.
Negotiations brought the 77-day teachers strike to an end on Oct. 25 following the intervention of Justice Minister Luis Fux, after the state teachers union appealed a lower-court decision that ruled the strike illegal and authorized pay deductions for strikers. Darci Frigo, co-founder of the public interest law nongovernmental organization (NGO) Terra de Direitos, called the involvement of a federal mediator "unprecedented." He continued, "I've never seen this before in my life. It shows how powerful street protests have been."
Teachers were subsequently awarded pay that had been docked during the strike and will create working groups to dialogue with government officials. Nevertheless, in the agreement, the public sector did not make any of the main concessions on salary or job-description issues.
Educators' Strike Predates June Protests
Education was one of the major issues raised during the June protests, and Rio's municipal and state teachers...
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