São Paulo teachers continue strike against deadly school reopenings despite union sabotage
Teachers voted on Saturday, February 27, to continue their strike against the murderous reopening of public schools in São Paulo, the state with the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in Brazil.
The vote, carried out through virtual assemblies, came the day after Brazil reported the highest number of COVID-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic over a year ago.
Despite the deadly implications of school reopenings amid this surge in the pandemic and with the imminent threat of a national collapse of the health system, the political groups within the São Paulo teachers union APEOESP executive board the Workers Party (PT), the Maoist Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) and the various tendencies of the pseudo-left Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) continue sabotaging the teachers strike.
Brazil reaches a quarter of a million COVID-19 deaths wsws.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wsws.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
São Paulo’s municipal teachers strike grows despite union sabotage
On Wednesday, the strike by the nearly 60,000 municipal teachers in São Paulo ended its first week. The return of students to the classrooms, scheduled for Monday, was answered by educators with the expansion of the strike, bypassing the unions’ efforts to sabotage their struggle.
A survey by rank-and-file teachers on WhatsApp groups indicates that the strike has spread to hundreds of schools in the city, preventing many of them from reopening. Another 530 municipal schools had the resumption of classes postponed due to the lack of a minimum number of cleaning personnel, exposing the precarious conditions of the educational system and the incompetence of the São Paulo City Hall administration.
Brazilian unions suppress workers’ opposition to mass layoffs following Ford shutdowns
One month after Ford announced the closure of all three of its remaining plants in Brazil, other companies linked to its production chain are dismissing their workers, unleashing a wave of layoffs affecting the most diverse sectors of the auto industry. According to research by the Interunion Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies (DIEESE), the 5,000 layoffs announced by Ford spell the potential destruction of another 118,864 jobs, resulting in a loss of 2.5 billion reais (US$465 million) in annual wages.
Based on this perspective, one can predict a wave of opposition among Brazilian workers. On January 26, about 800 workers at the auto parts manufacturer Arteb, located in the ABC industrial complex in São Paulo, went on strike to protest against 200 layoffs. Founded in 1934, Arteb produces headlights and headlamps for major automakers, and blamed the layoffs on the Ford’s clos
Eduardo’s arrival in the US on January 4 was reported as a “surprise visit” to the White House at the invitation of Ivanka Trump, daughter of the former US president.