Working People16 Nov 2022

Fabio Bosco

Last month, the world watched with bated breath as Brazilians voted in two rounds of high-stakes elections that pitted far-right president Jair Bolsonaro against former president, leftist hero, and leader of the Workers Party Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. After being elected president in 2018, Bolsonaro and his far-right movement have unleashed a darkness upon Brazil that has had wide-ranging implications for the country, the hemisphere, and the world. From burning the Amazon and overseeing a disastrous response to the COVID pandemic to stoking fascistic violence, conspiracy theories, and a fervor for religious war among his supporters, Bolsonaro and Bolsonarism have been a political wrecking ball slamming against a world already teetering on the edge of disaster. And that is why so many around Brazil and around the world celebrated when Lula defeated Bolsonaro at the end of October.

What role did workers and working-class voters play in this critical election? What does Lula's victory mean for working people and for the labor movement in Brazil? How have the lives of working-class people, and the shape of working-class politics, changed in Brazil in recent years and decades? And what can we all do to build international solidarity with our fellow workers in Brazil and beyond? We talk about all of this and more with Fabio Bosco, a retired subway operator in São Paulo, a trade unionist, and an organizer with the labor federation CSP-CONLUTAS.

Additional links/info below...

CSP-Conlutas website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Michael Fox, The Real News Network/NACLA, Brazil on Fire podcast series
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "Indigenous-Led Alliance Moves to Stop Bolsonaro's 'Ecocidal' Destruction of the Amazon"
Michael Fox, In These Times, "Brazil's Labor Unions Prepare for War with Far-Right President Jair Bolsanaro"
Robert Maisey, Trades Union Congress, "Bolsonaro Is Waging War on Labour Rights in Brazil"
Permanent links below...

Working People Patreon page
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

Jules Taylor, "Working People Theme Song

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(406)

He loved working in concrete. Now, he's dying from the chemical exposure

Because he was bullied in elementary school for being Native American, James Gardner's friends lovingly call him "NDN." His friends and family know NDN to be a fiercely loyal, loving person, and a fie...

5 Okt 40min

Want to save the world? Start by unionizing your workplace

"We are living in a pivotal moment in labor history," Cole Rockarts writes in their new book Fired Up About Unions. "At a time when corporations have more power, profit, and political influence than e...

30 Sep 53min

Toledo residents' lives upended by deadly Brent Industries explosions

On the morning of August 18, residents living near the Brent Industries facility in Toledo, Ohio, awoke to a series of massive explosions and a towering chemical fire in their backyards. Two Brent Ind...

23 Sep 57min

"Purge Palantir!": Union nurses warn Big Tech and Big Brother are invading our healthcare system

On August 27, registered nurses, patients, and community allies rallied and stopped traffic in cities around the US to demand that hospitals and elected officials cut all ties with artificial intellig...

16 Sep 43min

Why the stories working people tell ourselves about ourselves matter (Wheeling, WV Labor Symposium Speech)

Over the 2026 Labor Day weekend, Working People host and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez spoke at the Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium in Wheeling, West Virginia, organized by the Whee...

9 Sep 32min

Can anyone "make it" in today's music industry?

The 20th-century days of vinyl records, tape decks, CDs, Tower Records, and MTV have given way to our 21st-century age of MP3s and music streaming, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, TikTok, and Ticketmaster. ...

2 Sep 56min

"Katrina 2.0": Residents of Gary, Indiana fight to survive without power for 12 days (and counting)

After a deadly "derecho" storm and flash floods slammed the midwest in early August, downing trees and power lines, tens of thousands of residents in and around Gary, Indiana have been surviving witho...

24 Aug 47min

No such thing as 'unskilled work': Barbara Ehrenreich's 'Nickel and Dimed' 25 years later

In her 2001 masterwork Nickel and Dimed, the late Barbara Ehrenreich went undercover to report on the daily realities working people in America face trying to get by on minimum-wage. After working as ...

19 Aug 46min