Left Behind: Labor Unions and Redistributive Policy under the Brazilian Workers’ Party

Abstract

How do leftist governments negotiate the trade-off between courting union support and maintaining the business sector’s trust? Scholars have argued that leftist parties will remain accountable to their labor base when powerful unions have strong ties to centralized leftist parties. However, I argue that strong party-union ties and party leadership centralization may, in fact, insulate leftist presidents against redistributive pressures from below. When party-union ties allow labor leaders to develop careers as professional politicians, these leaders become more responsive to the party’s goals than to their union base. Further, a centralized party organization can exclude unions and leftist factions from the design of redistributive policies. To test my argument, I use a case study of Brazil under the administration of the Worker’s Party (PT).