2023-12-07 16:21:39
By: Camilo Martín, director of the São Paulo Metro Workers Union and PSTU activist
Last Tuesday, November 28, the city of São Paulo woke up again at dawn. Workers from the Metro, the CPTM (trains) and the segurasp (sanitation) crossed their arms against the privatization package of fundamental public services. In addition to them, teachers from state and municipal networks, from the Paula Souza Center (technical education institutions) and workers from the Casa Foundation (socio-educational services) participated in the demonstrations that denounced the delivery of public goods to privilege billionaires.
As on October 3, the debate on privatizations gained centrality. Still fresh in the memory of the population is the chaos caused daily by the failures on lines 8 and 9 of private transportation and the recent six-day blackout caused by ENEL, the private energy concessionaire, which affected the lives of millions and generated huge losses. Examples of true contempt for the people.
The private governor does not want to leave any public service. For him everything is money in the pockets of his businessman friends. He recently announced that he will build 33 privately managed schools, financed with federal funds, through the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES).
While we were closing the edition of this newspaper, the project to privatize state sanitation was on the agenda of the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo (Alesp). Despite evidence that the company is highly profitable for the State, Tarcísio continues to take measures to hand over segurasp to the private sector, against the popular will and to the satisfaction of his people. On the eve of the vote, the governor delivered more than 70 million reais in amendments to allied deputies.
Government bets on criminalization and threats! Workers respond with mobilization!
After the unified strike on October 3, Tarcísio opted for the criminalization of workers. He fired eight Metro workers, including the union’s vice president, Narciso Soares, and former president Altino Prazeres, both PSTU activists.
On the eve of the November 28 strike, he announced punishments for those who joined the strike. The objective was to attack the right to strike and weaken the movement. He didn’t get it! What we saw was a very strong day, mainly among Metro workers, where support reached around 92% of the union.
The campaign against privatization increased Tarcísio’s wear and tear and strengthened the fight against the handover of state companies and the destruction of public services.
If before the majority of the population of São Paulo was already against privatizations, as can be seen from a Datafolha survey from April 2023, the campaign carried out in recent months has increased the wear and tear of the government and has consolidated the rejection of the privatization project.
The plebiscite carried out by the union and popular movements, which obtained 879,431 votes, showed that 99.9% of voters were against privatizations. On the day of the strike, when the debate became polarized, there were many demonstrations of support on social media. The hashtag #NãoPrivatizaSP was among the 10 most commented on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
A survey presented by the newspaper The globeon November 1, showed a 22.5% drop in the governor’s positive evaluation, even before completing a year in office.
The union centers and leftist organizations need to strengthen and expand the mobilization!
Privatizations reflect a project of the national bourgeoisie, submissive to the recolonization project that imperialism has for the country. That is why state governments and also the federal government have implemented private projects throughout the country.
The impacts of these projects have consequences for the working class as a whole. For this reason, trade union centers should unify the struggle, and left-wing organizations should prioritize these confrontations, building, for example, a national plan to fight against privatization and fiscal adjustments.
The complicit silence of the left
Unfortunately, this is not what we have seen. The support of the large union centers, such as the CUT, the CTB and the Força Sindical, or the majority of leftist organizations and their main figures, has been far below the possibilities.
One of the most prominent figures in São Paulo, Guilherme Boulos, of the PSOL, did not even participate in the demonstration or speak out in support of the strike.
This is an option of these sectors that prioritize bourgeois elections, instead of prioritizing the fight for workers’ rights. And, on the other hand, they choose not to advance in the unification of the struggles against privatizations, since this would strengthen the confrontation not only against the disastrous state governments of Tarcísio, in São Paulo and Romeu Zema, in Minas Gerais, but also against the federal government, which continues with its “National Destatization Plan” at full steam.
The increase in transportation rates in 2024 is one more attack in favor of billionaires
Tarciso announced that, at the beginning of 2024, the value of Metro and train fares will increase. This is yet another measure to give money to private companies and make people foot the bill.
The fight for zero tariffs is part of the fight against privatization. If all services remained state-owned and the already privatized sectors were re-nationalized, it would be possible to change the logic in favor of workers and poor people.
Transportation would no longer be a commodity whose objective is to guarantee profits, but rather a right of the population. Thus, the State would subsidize transportation for those who work and not to generate profits for billionaires. With renationalization, it would be necessary to elect a council, with workers and users, to oversee and decide how the service would work and where the resources would be applied.
Interview
“Our fight is against privatizations, for the re-nationalization of privatized companies and against the punishments of those who fight”
Altino de Melo Prazeres, former president of the Metro Workers Union and fired after the October 3 strike, exposed on the national network the “economics of privatization”, through which billions of public money are drained to privilege half a dozen of billionaires, making the people suffer the consequences. Socialist Opinion He spoke with his colleague about this situation and the fight against privatization.
Altino, your interview on the Datena program had a great impact. Tell us a little more about what is behind the privatization policy and how it privileges capitalist billionaires.
The live interview was part of the fight against privatizations, of the unified strike of the Metrô, the CPTM and the Buscasp on October 3, of the Popular Plebiscite, with more than 900,000 votes against the privatizations.
We managed to address the issue in society. Governor Tarcísio had to respond to us, in the media, and there were also the failures of private companies on the subway lines, on the railways, and the blackout of the electric company ENEL, which affected millions of people for several days.
With Datena, it was the day before the strike on the 28th, and I only demonstrated that the four privatized lines, which have the support of the CCR, transport half of the passengers that use the state system, but earn four times more than the state sector. This explains why the CCR now has five new billionaires on the list of Forbes.
This debate took place during prime time on the most popular programs, which later also went viral on social networks.
This situation is unfortunate, but it is not only a reality of São Paulo. Privatizations have been carried out throughout the country, under different governments and often in the form of Associations [Parcerías] Public-Private (PPP), defended in 2004 by the PT government. Tell us a little about this national privatization scenario and the role of PPPs.
The PPP Law, signed on 12/30/2004 by Lula, was drafted by Haddad, who now promises a new super PPP so that the national State can be guarantor of state and municipal privatizations.
Alckmin, then a member of the PSDB, privatized metro lines 4 and 5. Later, Doria did the same with lines 8 and 9 of the CPTM, using the PPP. Lula privatized the first company this year, the Belo Horizonte metro, using the PPP, despite the complaints of metro workers.
This law is very perverse because the State gives the guarantees, pays the private sector by contract, the billionaires make a lot of profits and, if everything goes wrong, they return the companies to the State.
Now, we see that the fight against privatization and for re-nationalization is a national issue, as in Minas Gerais (water, sanitation, energy, gas and strategic mineral such as niobium), in Bahia (Bahiagás), in Paraná (energy), in Río Grande do Sul (sanitation) and in São Paulo (metro, railway, sanitation, water, etc.). In addition to the fight for 100% state-owned Petrobras, to make cooking gas and fuel cheaper, the Telebrás System, Eletrobrás and many others that have a great impact on the majority of the population.
All these privatizations are at the service of big businessmen and the richest countries.
Now, in this scenario of imposing privatizations, governments have used repression. Here in São Paulo, the Tarcísio government fired eight subway workers after the October 3 strike, including you. What is the real motivation for the dismissals and how can we organize the fight to reverse this persecution?
Tarcísio’s government wants to prevent the fight against privatization and the layoffs are at the service of that. My dismissal, that of Narciso, vice president of the union, two other directors of the union, three cipeiros [seguridad en el trabajo] and a train operator, are attempts to silence the voice against privatization and the handing over of public assets to big billionaires.
As a result of this struggle, we were fired on October 24, two weeks after a mobilization by train operators against punishments, because this sector refused to train strikebreakers since the beginning of the year.
Reintegration was part of the agenda of the unified strike on October 28 and, today, we have more than 350 signatures from unions, political and social entities, national and international personalities in defense of the persecuted metro workers.
We need to strengthen this campaign for readmission, with photographs and posters, seek new signatures against this anti-union and authoritarian attitude.
I would like to ask you to talk a little about the perspectives of this fight against privatization and in defense of public services. And, furthermore, what should we defend in the case of companies that are already privatized?
The campaign must continue, become nationalized, advance class consciousness. It is necessary to demand that other union centers and organizations join in a national campaign against privatization. The fight is against privatization and for renationalization without compensation, even because they have already stolen a lot of public money. And, also, against the punishments of those who fight.
In addition, we need to make the workers, together with the population, control the state companies to avoid corruption, loss of jobs and decide where to spend, how to spend, what the priorities are, and guarantee the quality of service and the price of the rates.
This debate is part of the strategic struggle for another society that is not focused on the profits of large companies, but on the vast majority of the population, workers and their allies, a socialist society.
Article published in www.opiniaosocialista.com.br6/12/2023.-
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
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