Photos and original material in Brazilian:
http://www.viasantos.com/intersindical/
Violent repression in Santos left 50 injured and 35 stevedores jailed on the 8th day of action in defence of work. BLOODY MONDAY, 2 APRIL, RECALLS THE EPOCH OF THE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP.
On Monday 2nd April the São Paulo State Governor’s Military Police unleashed the most violent wave of repression of the last 10 years in Santos, injuring 50 stevedores and arresting 35 others, on the 8th day of the strike in defence of the right to work. “Moral effect” bombs packed with plastic and high explosives, tear gas and rubber bullets, were used throughout the attack on demonstrators.
Demonstrators were arrested in the streets and even inside the houses of city residents who had opened their doors to offer shelter and were invaded by the military police. The injured received medical attention only through the intervention of Councillors and Deputies, who demanded that they be taken to the city’s health service. Testimony by residents near the conflict area in Macuco district, were unanimous in condemning the excessive force utilised against workers by the military.
Peaceful demonstrations succeeded one another in the central streets of Santos and districts adjoining the quayside from early morning. In the afternoon a police unit transferred from São Paulo (the State government and employers do not trust local units) furiously attacked the demonstrators, inciting a great battle between equipped units and unarmed demonstrators using stones from the streets for defence.
The confrontations spread through the streets and during the entire afternoon Santos seemed to be thrown back to the worst days of military dictatorship in Brazil. The military were totally out of control without orderly command or action. The clashes followed one another for a long time, with troops firing off rounds of rubber bullets and launching tear gas and explosive bombs. The workers fought back with stones taken from the pavement.
28 ships are tied up in port in the general cargo, container and bulk grain areas on the public quays. However, according to the Santos Stevedores Union, private terminals are operating without unionised labour or legal authority. This is one of the factors which incited resistance.
On the morning of Tuesday 3 April, in reaction to the police violence, 19 portworkers unions affiliated to the State of São Paulo Port Inter-union committee [Intersindical] declared their support for the stevedores’ strike and joined in the stoppage which now extends throughout the port and also to the transport systems, with the support of the Transport Union (lorry drivers), completely halting exit operations and receipt of goods.
The stoppage which was initiated by the decision to hand over to the employers, through the órgão Gestor de Mão-de-Obra (Labour Management Body) the selection of workers for operations, now takes on the character of defence of organised and unionised labour, through the insistence of terminals and operating companies on working without stevedores. Selection of labour has been carried out by the union for 67 years. The trend on Tuesday 3 April was to amplify the strike, with strong pressure on the national federations (absent so far, according to the workers) and on spreading to other ports, like Rio de Janeiro, where stevedores already decided not to discharge ships diverted from Santos.
On Monday evening 2nd April, the stevedores held mass meetings in Mauá square facing the Santos Town Hall, where they reaffirmed the continuation of their action. Even after the two serious confrontations with Military Police, the workers’ courage appeared heightened and, unless an adequate proposal arises from the employers or government, the movement has breathing space to continue. Labour selection could be discussed - the workers showed themselves disposed to this. But the threat represented by the operation of private terminals without unionised stevedores appears to throw up a growing impasse without solution.
The President of the Santos Stevedores Union, Vanderlei José da Silva, blames Rear-Admiral José Ribamar Miranda Dias, President of the Port Modernisation Executive Group (Gempo), a federal government body, for radicalising the problem. “He is even corrupting the Public Ministry of Labour (Prosecutors of the Labour Court), because it makes the decision. It gives orders by telephone. The Public Ministry is behaving as if it were the bosses lawyer,” he told the mass meeting. “The decision of the Intersindical to actively support the movement writes a page of history which our children and grandchilren will be proud to read in future.”
Vanderlei stated: “The Public Ministry is not allowing people to negotiate, it gives orders and does not wish to listen to us. We have moved the biggest port in Latin America for more than 100 years by ourselves, selecting labour, developing methods. For 67 years the current method has been efficient, the result of learning, of trial and error, it is a tested method. So it is easy to conclude that the aim is not to alter the selection, but to break unionised labour. What they call the modern system dictated by globalisation, in the workers’ view does not go beyond longing for slavery and exploitation of labour in 19th century fashion, in the midst of the 21st century. They want to revoke 100 years of history. We cannot look after our children, our families, if we abandon ourselves to slaughter without a fight. It’s already not just about work, but about the shape of the world which we pass on to them. This is the modern struggle of workers, however much they depict us as enemies of globalised reality.”
I have known the Santos Stevedores and their heroic struggles for many years before coming to live in Santos in 1970. It was during the ’60s that an old Jewish friend showed me books on the human conflicts which altered the course of history. I read, in one of the first, of the brilliant hope lit in the minds of Spanish republicans by an action of these brave men on the Santos quays.
They refused to load coffee which the Brazilian government was donating to Francisco Franco, during the Spanish Civil War. They resisted pressure from the government and military. In a strike which exploded after violent repression, many died in the streets of this South Atlantic city, only for believing that Brazil must not aid the Francoist scum against the Republicans. Stevedores were, before everyone else, republicans. Their neighbours were those across the ocean. And over the sea, at that time, they were in Spain and its dreams. Their hopes and ours, could be called the same.
They died anonymously. The names of those who fell are not known. There are no monuments nor a Lorca who sang of them. They live on, however, in their way of saying “They Shall Not Pass”. I read in an old book how they sang in the Spanish trenches of the bravery of those unknown men from the other side of the world, capable of an international solidarity which comforted nights of poor sleep and hard days. I like to think that, through long company and friendship, it is possible for me to say that I also share in this beautiful history. Without being one, I am a Santos stevedore.
This is a militant web-report by the journalist Mauri Alexandrino.
