Pochmann: The challenge is to attract service workers to demonstrations.

Eduardo Maretti, from Current Brazil Network - According to some political leaders linked to democratic sectors in Brazil, there is a crucial issue challenging left-wing movements in the face of the protests against the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. This issue concerns the mobilization of the proletariat and the working class. Roberto Amaral, one of the coordinators of the Popular Brazil Front, is among those who have defended the need to reflect on the difficulty of mobilizing workers, although he believes that the participation of the CUT (Unified Workers' Central) and the CTB (Brazilian Workers' Central) in the fight against the coup and their integration with social movements and parties is "very productive" in the current situation.

"The problem is that we are having difficulty mobilizing the workers and the masses. We have been carrying out mobilizations with a predominant presence of the middle class," he says. "We are not managing to speak to the masses, the main victims of the new government. They remain wary."

The issue becomes more complex when one considers that it is a structural problem within the country's economy, and a global phenomenon. According to economist Marcio Pochmann, the economy is increasingly based on the service sector, composed of a different group of workers than the class that rose to prominence with the industrial revolution.

"Service workers have a very different characteristic from traditional industrial workers. They no longer submit to the traditional organizational hierarchy. Their movements are generally horizontal. The organizational structure of the old working class was based on a hierarchical structure of organizations, such as unions, associations, and parties."

President of the Perseu Abramo Foundation, Pochmann says that this new working class, in addition to having a horizontal organization, also reveals a contradiction. "While this class has grown, on the other hand, these workers are subjected to a much greater degree of exploitation. Even so, traditional institutions (such as unions) are unable to incorporate these segments. In part because they do not know their aspirations very well."

According to the economist, this group is also difficult to organize because it consists of workers from very large segments of companies, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises. "It's a challenge that exists not only in Brazil, but throughout the world. That's why there's a weakening of traditional unions and, at the same time, an expansion of a much more precarious working class."

In this context, traditional workers are losing ground in the total number of people who take to the streets in political acts such as those against impeachment. "It's not that they can't organize, it's that a way to more easily overcome this hasn't yet been found," assesses Pochmann. According to an assessment by the Perseu Abramo Foundation, 40% of the "more or less organized" population has participated in the demonstrations, for or against impeachment, and 60% are not.

Research
One of the problems is the lack of information and research on the subject. A study by economist Vanessa Moraes Lugli at the Institute of Economics (IE) of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), covering the period from 2002 to 2012, shows that the productivity of services reached 50% of the value of industry, the average salary reached 70%, and the total wages in the service sector reached 94% of the value paid in industry. The volume of employment was 137%. In 2007, according to the research, productivity reached 46,5% of industry.

A survey conducted by the Perseu Abramo Foundation, on the profiles of people who participated in demonstrations for and against impeachment, is revealing. It shows that 12% of citizens who took to the streets in 2015 belong to unions (up from 27% in 2015), 26% belong to social movements (up from 24% in 2015), and 11% belong to political parties (up from 24%).

Among the population that attended the demonstrations for impeachment, participation is negligible. Only 2% participated in unions (compared to 6% in 2015), 5% in social movements (3%), and 2% in political parties, the same percentage as last year.

The research was conducted among the public present at the demonstrations on March 13 and 15, 2015, and March 13 and 18, 2016, on Avenida Paulista, in São Paulo.