The PT in the union
BRAZIL revolutionary role, inasmuch helps to unify the workers and mobilize them against the bourgeoisie as a class, thereby becoming a cornerstone of building a workers' alternative.
At this point, we have to go back to the question of how political the trade-union movement can be. It is clear that trade-union struggle and the unions necessarily have political features. union's primary task is to organize its ranks to fight to defend their interests - first of all their economic interests. But these economic struggles also take on a political character, if they widen, as is the case of the struggle against the government's economic policy, against the Bresser plan.
Certain methods of struggle, such as strikes, have an inherent political character, especially if they face repression. Likewise, unions must participate broader struggles that concern workers" general interests, such as, for the fight for president through direct, universal
Uniting the majority of the working class
The bounds of unions' political activity are defined by the need to maintain their character as united-front bodies that must to be able to unite a great majority of the class (consequently, these limits can vary in accordance with the progress of the class as a whole).
The PT's trade-union line puts this question correctly: "The CUT and the unions must not restrict themselves to economic demands. In working to get the CUT and the unions to take up political demands, PT activists must be careful to see that these demands reflect
22
International Viewpoint • October 12, 1987 the aspirations, demands and needs of the broad masses, and not of a small part of the workers." (The PT's trade-union line, May/June 1986.)
On that basis, we can go forward to define the role that the CUT and the unions must play in building a workers'
The CUT and the unions have to be the expression of the class independence of the workers on a trade-union level. This means above all independent class activity that advances workers' class consciousness and promotes mobilization to fight for their interests against the bourgeois, its state and its economic system. That is the meaning of the resolution adopted by the CUT's
In this way, the unions acquire an anti-capitalist and socialist dynamic, without adopting a program of fighting for power, which would require a more advanced political consciousness than that of the mass movement as a whole.
This understanding of the CUT's role in building a workers' alternative, by giving impetus to working-class tradeand political action, consistent with the policy of uniting the proletariat around a perspective of political independence. In this sense, it is an integral part of a more general endeavor by working people. But obviously only one aspect of this policy falls to the CUT. It is up to the parties (and in reality, essentially to the PT) to advance the policy as a whole. However, even on the level of uniting the workers in a class-struggle perspective, the CUT is not adequate today.
The CUT has not organized all workers under its leadership. Some sections of the working class remain unorganized, and some are under the leadership of the CGT. It is essential that the CUT, besides having a policy of unity in action with other sectors, seeks to draw all organized workers into its ranks. Concretely, this means continuing to fight to expand the CUT and to attract into it those sectors in the CGT. With this growing strength, the CUT daily becomes a bigger pole of attrac tion.
Broadening the CUT means fighting for the leadership of unions that are not yet affiliated to it, but also working to attract to it the political currents that are in the camp of the CGT, such as the PCB and the PC do B. Some comrades may be afraid that drawing these forces into the CUT will get in the way of the trade-union line we want the confederation to adopt. That is because they fear the intrusion of reformist policy, of a policy of class conciliation.
However, it is possible to attract such forces into the CUT and still maintain struggle forces. The fight for dominance that is developing between the CUT and the CGT today would not disappear, but would be waged within the CUT, in conditions highly favorable for us and for organizing the class struggle.
This does not mean calling for "reunification of the CUT and the CGT," a policy that is rightly criticized in the document The PT's trade-union line. Such a proposal would, as its authors explicitly say, put into question the basic gains of the CUT. It means simply that these reformist forces could be obliged to join the CUT in conditions that would be unfavorable to their class-collaborationist policy and favorable to the interests of the class-struggle forces (if the class-struggle forces were weak, the terms of the situation would be reversed).
### Class-struggle trade unionism
Until now, the CUT has combined the features of a union confederation with those of a broad political current supporting class-struggle positions in the trade-union movement. This situation is not the result of our conception but of the way in which the CUT was formed, of its separation from the CGT. In practice, the CUT functions almost like a PT trade-union current.
This framework is tending to change. The growth of the CUT itself is conducive to a widening of its political heterogeneity. This has therefore been leading to the appearance of openly reformist or very confused positions. All this is positive, because it leads in the direction of the CUT becoming an all-embracing confederation, a cornerstone of mass, independent, democratic class-struggle trade unionism.
At the same time, this evolution will
lend urgency to the question of fighting to maintain the dominance of the class-struggle forces in the CUT. This will be the focus of continual disputes between widely differing political positions, from the most reformist to the most revolutionary, including forms of vacillation and ultra-leftist and sectarian policies.
Thus, organizing and coordinating PT activists' work in the CUT, which is already an integral part of our strategic conception of building the PT as a revolutionary party, is continually taking on a greater importance. It will be basically up to PT activists to ensure that class-struggle positions dominate in the PT and that it retains its character as a democratic and independent confederation. TRABALHADORES
Overcoming sectarian confrontation
To accomplish this, it is necessary to meet certain preconditions:
• A more thoroughgoing clarification the PT's general principles (the character of the party itself as well the principles of its trade-union work, in order to develop a higher degree of political unity.
• Overcoming the sort of sectarian confrontation that has marked PT activists themselves in various trade-union processes and bears a considerable responsibility for our defeat in the elections in the São Paulo metalworkers' union.'
• Genuine democracy at all levels, in the PT as well as in the CUT. Founded on the principles of workers' democracy, the CUT must overcome the exclusionist and bureaucratic practices that dominate the life of the confederation today. Conscious action is necessary to defend the exercise of internal democracy.
It also has to be understood that relations between the various sectors that make up the CUT and those that join it must be regulated by common action in the mass movement and by the integration within the CUT of different trade-union experiences.
Very often such differences reflect different conceptions in the process of formation, but which are not yet crystallized today, especially if we take the ideas that exist simultaneously in the CUT and in the CGT. * 1. In the São Paulo metalworkers' union elections in June, there were three slates. Slate 1 was headed by Luis Antonio de Mederios and backed by the CGT bureaucracy and its general secretary, Joaquinzão. Slate 3 had the official support of the CUT and certain sectors of the PT. Then, a Slate No. 2 appeared bringing together sections of the CGT in conflict with the confederation leadership (PDT dissidents, PCB and PC do B activists) but also some PT and CUT members, such as Lucio Belentanni who headed the slate.
"Power to the workers"