Cohen: Build a Framework like Brazil

CWA President Larry Cohen joins worker rights panel at Economic Policy Institute.

Faced with a nationwide attack on workers' rights and their unions, American workers can learn a lesson from the Brazilians, CWA President Larry Cohen said Wednesday.

"If we don't build a framework like they did in Brazil, I don't think we'll be able to reverse this for decades," said Cohen, speaking on a panel of labor activists at the Economic Policy Institute.

In Brazil 25 years ago, Cohen said, organizers like himself and fellow panelists — including Luis Carlos de Oliveira, vice president of the Metalworkers Union of Jundiai, Brazil — would have been jailed. But today nearly 40 percent of Brazilians belong to a union. The reason — Brazil's Workers Party built a powerful movement that linked together jobs, workers' rights and economic justice. United, workers won the creation of laws that ushered in higher wages, 30 days of paid vacation each year, four months of paid maternity leave and more.

That movement has enabled Brazil to combat corporate greed and the wealthy's colossal political influence, the panel explained. Take for instance the controversy around worker abuse at Foxconn factories. In China, Apple supplier Foxconn has taken advantage of Chinese workers, forcing them to work overtime in deplorable conditions for little pay. Chinese unions are dominated by Foxconn management. Explosions have killed and injured employees, while the militaristic work environment has driven many to suicide.

But at Foxconn's plants in Brazil, employees don't work beyond the maximum 44-hour week established by Brazilian law. Their monthly wages start at roughly $580 a month, while their Chinese counterparts earn as little as $246 a month for similar work, according to data compiled by EPI. In Brazil, Foxconn is working with unions to facilitate more hiring to assemble more Apple products, and its Brazilian factory lines haven't seen a single explosion.

Meanwhile, General Electric workers in West Burlington, Iowa, are struggling this week to organize. In just five years, wages in Shanghai will equal those in US cities, since American production workers haven't seen a real wage increase in more than three decades. Cohen called America's trade policy a "sled ride downhill," as many consumers celebrate Apple and ignore the labor environment that has relocated US manufacturing to countries with few workers' rights.

Cohen encouraged the audience to take action into their own hands, starting with attending a 99 Percent Spring training. "It's not 'how do we speak to our government,' but 'how do we speak to each other,'" he said.