"Não trabalhou porque não quis": Greve de trabalhadores têxteis na Justiça do Trabalho (Bahia, 1948)

Abstract

Based on a labor court case, this articles focuses on a strike in the textile industry of Bahia in 1948. After the strike ended the employers went to the Labor Court. Proving the strike to be illegal resulted in the production of much documentary evidence, used here as a historical source. As a phenomenon, the strike, which marks the end of a cycle of strikes in the post-war years, also has aspects related to the 1945-1964 period in Brazil (and later). The way it was treated by the Labor Court shows how the political system, in dealing with the labor movement, sought to minimize its fears and tensions by containing the insinuations of workers as a social class, in a scenario whose democratic content strongly demanded the end of the Estado Novo dictatorship.