Brazilian Auto-Workers Attack Volkswagen Plan

Autoworkers unions in Brazil are denouncing plans by Volkswagen's local subsidiary to introduce robots in its Brazilian plants, and to reorganize production along what the union calls Japanese lines, as part of a planned joint venture with the Nissan Motor Corporation. The project has been encouraged by the Brazilian government as a means of increasing the country's exports of cars and car parts.

Volkswagen's intention to organize Brazilian workers into competitive "Quality Control Circles" (CCQs) of 10-12 workers, who can operate each others' machines and substitute for each other on the job, is labelled "an advanced technique of capitalist exploitation" in the newsletter of one of the largest Brazilian unions. The CCQs, each led by an "animator", are designed to boost productivity by racing against each other for what the union calls "psychological rewards, winners'-circle propaganda and illusory material remuneration."

The newsletter, published by the metalworkers' union of Sao Bernardo do Campo and Diadema, also criticizes the Brazilian government's emphasis on exports at the expense of workers' rights and jobs. "In 1981, Volkswagen... fired 13,000 workers, not counting those called `volunteers' (MM, September 1981). At the same time, Volkswagen announced that it is going to buy eight robots to replace those fired [sic]. There are today 40,000 unemployed autoworkers in the (suburban Sao Paulo) area," states the newsletter. "Why is the (Brazilian Industry and Commerce) Ministry interested in copying the Japanese model? ... Is it the possibility of new jobs in Brazil? The answer is simple: NO!"

Despite the unprecedented layoffs of auto workers, and a decline of 7% in overall industrial production during the first nine months of 1981, Volkswagen do Brazil was the nation's leading auto exporter in 1981, sending abroad 66,000, or 30%, of the 221,680 cars and vans it produced in Brazil from January to September. Nigeria was the principal export market.

Luis Inacio da Silva ("Lula"), de facto leader of the Sao Bernardo do Campo and Diadema union and head of the Brazilian Labor Party (PT), termed the Volkswagen program "incredible" during a visit to Washington the first week in February, one stop on a 10-day trip to meet with U.S. and Canadian union leaders and brief them about the Brazilian labor situation.

Recent polls have shown the Labor Party running neck-and-neck in popularity with the other principal opposition party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). With elections for state officials scheduled for November, the government has attempted to block the political ambitions of Lula as well as other opposition leaders by changing the electoral law. Revisions announced over the past several months prohibit persons who -are sentenced under the National Security Law and no longer awaiting an appeal, from seeking political office. (Lula was charged with National Security violations for leading a strike in 1980; his case is being appealed in a Sao Paulo military court, whose judgement may or may not come before the election.) The electoral law also requires parties to run candidates for all offices on the ballot, which works against newly-formed and poorly-funded parties like the PT.