Social Networks and Urban Space: Worker Mobilization in the First Years of “New” Unionism in Brazil

Abstract

AbstractIn 1980, thousands of metalworkers from the region of greater São Paulo known as the “ABC” region carried out one of the most intense and lasting strikes in the history of the Brazilian working class. For forty-one days, striking workers resisted the repression that bosses and the nation's military regime mounted against them, which contributed to the collective worker mobilization that spread throughout the spaces of the city – especially the streets of the São Bernardo do Campo neighborhood. Expelled from factories and major public spaces, workers were able to maintain the strike mainly in the neighborhoods where they lived, thus politicizing the spaces and relationships of their daily lives and redefining the geography of collective mobilization. This article analyzes aspects of this process, highlighting the importance of workers’ social networks to the notable (re)appropriation of urban space that characterized the strike movement.