Since 1943, the lives of Brazilian working people and their
employers have been governed by the Consolidation of Labor Laws
(CLT). Seen as the end of an exclusively repressive approach, the
CLT was long hailed as one of the world's most advanced bodies of
social legislation. In
Drowning in Laws, John D. French
examines the juridical origins of the CLT and the role it played in
the cultural and political formation of the Brazilian working
class.
Focusing on the relatively open political era known as the Populist
Republic of 1945 to 1964, French illustrates the glaring contrast
between the generosity of the CLT's legal promises and the meager
justice meted out in workplaces, government ministries, and labor
courts. He argues that the law, from the outset, was more an ideal
than a set of enforceable regulations--there was no intention on
the part of leaders and bureaucrats to actually practice what was
promised, yet workers seized on the CLT's utopian premises while
attacking its systemic flaws. In the end, French says, the labor
laws became "real" in the workplace only to the extent that workers
struggled to turn the imaginary ideal into reality.