All the national trade union centres of Brazil together with student and other social movements are joining in a historic national strike today. The country’s generalised social dissent has deepened following the government’s recent efforts to target pensions with neo-liberal reforms.

“A coordinated attack on democracy has delivered a retrograde government that is going after the working people of Brazil. What they didn’t expect is the scale of the push back against their punitive measures.” said Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary.

This is the latest in a series of onslaughts that have targeted the conditions of the country’s working people. These were initiated in 2016, following the unfounded impeachment of Dilma Rousseff. “First, the coup in 2016 saw the establishment of the unelected Temer government. Made up exclusively of white men, this interim government imposed a 20-year freeze on government spending. Then, Lula who was set to win the presidential election, was imprisoned in a huge travesty of justice. It created the environment for the installation of Jair Bolsonaro, who is determined to destroy the hard-won social and economic gains of Lula’s Presidency and turn Brazil into a bargain-basement shop for Brazilian and foreign capital,” said Burrow.

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