Authoritarian neoliralism and tradeunionism in Brazil and Argentine
This work intends to investigate the role of the Brazilian and Argentine trade union movement in the advancement of authoritarian neoliberalism after 2015 and 2016, especially in the governments of Mauricio Macri and Michael Temer. The hypothesis that we will test in this research is that the Brazilian and Argentine unions were, each in their context and with their own nuances, key political agents in the process of resistance both to the establishment of neoliberalism in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as in the current phase of authoritarianism that began with the 2008 crisis in the USA. Brazil and Argentina delayed the most radical phase of the neoliberal model due to the articulation and strength of their unions. We intend to demonstrate that even with a long history spanning three decades of strong offensives against workers, only when new attacks - such as the union and labor reform of 2016 in Brazil and the various cases of violent repression that occurred in Argentina from 2017 to the unions’ structures took place, the agenda of authoritarian neoliberalism moved forward. Ultimately, the aim is to contribute to the analysis of the realities concentrated in Latin America in neoliberalism, dialoguing critically with the existing literature on authoritarian or ultra-reactionary neoliberalism and its Anglo-Saxon influences.