Authors: Angela Teberga and Bianca Briguglio
Labor unions have played a fundamental role in Brazil's history and have been decisive in consolidating and defending workers' rights. Despite this, the Brazilian parliament approved a labor reform in 2017, which, among other setbacks, reduced union funding and increased the prevalence of collective agreements over labor legislation, putting additional pressure on unions. These changes, combined with rising unemployment and informal labor, contributed to a sharp decline in unionization rates.
In 2023, Brazil recorded 8.4 million unionized workers, representing 8.4% of the employed population. Recently, a news story caught the attention of the national press: a long line of outsourced workers requesting exemption from the union assistance fee, equivalent to 3% or one day's wages per year.
In Brazilian tourism, only 5% of workers were unionized in 2023, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The land transport sector had the highest unionization rate (12%), while the food and transportation rental sectors had the lowest (2%). The highest average unionization rate in tourism occurred in 2013, with 14% of workers unionized. Additionally, according to the Inter-Union Department of Statistics (DIEESE), only 13 strikes were recorded in the hotel and restaurant sector over the past decade, with the main motivations being delayed wages, salary adjustments, moral harassment, non-payment of meal allowances, minimum wage violations, and unpaid bonuses. The last major strike occurred in 2016 at the luxury Blue Mountain Hotel & Spa, where 50 workers stopped work for 96 hours due to delayed wages and non-payment of meal allowances and other benefits.
What explains the low unionization rate in the tourism and hospitality sector in Brazil? Below, we list five possible explanations:
1. The high level of informality in tourism (around 51%) makes it difficult for workers to organize as a class, as the absence of a formal employment relationship excludes them from direct union action;
2. The prevalence of small businesses in tourism hampers workers organization due to the close proximity to employers, as well as the fact that these businesses often operate in informal sectors or with more flexible contracts;
3. In an economic crisis context, high unemployment rates and the fear of layoffs discourage workers from engaging in political organizations;
4. Various forms of pressure and coercion against workers organization persist in tourism companies;
5. The "Fordist" model of unionization is outdated for the tourism sector, as it no longer aligns with the new morphology of work and the constant transformations in society.
There is also a significant ideological battle that unions are losing: as labor precarity increases and employment ties become more fragile, more workers are turning to self-employment, seeing themselves as entrepreneurs. In this sense, they increasingly adopt individual survival strategies and abandon any collective perspective of struggle.
[1] The full version of this article will be published in Portuguese on the Labor Movens website and in Spanish on the Alba Sud website.