Agrarian reform and the rural workers' unions of the Pernambuco sugar zone, Brazil 1985-1988
Article
Pereira, AW. (1992). Agrarian reform and the rural workers' unions of the Pernambuco sugar zone, Brazil 1985-1988
. JOURNAL OF DEVELOPING AREAS, 26(2), 169-192.
Pereira, AW. (1992). Agrarian reform and the rural workers' unions of the Pernambuco sugar zone, Brazil 1985-1988
. JOURNAL OF DEVELOPING AREAS, 26(2), 169-192.
Presents data from a survey conducted by the author in Pernambuco in 1988, which aimed to discover union leaders' attitudes to agrarian reform in a state with a progressive governor where most rural labourers have no access to land of their own. The first part describes the relationships of rural poverty, the unions, and the state with each other. The second notes the failure of the central government to protect the rural poor, while the third points out that the consequence of this non-action is a widespread alienation from the state on the part of the rural union leaders. The last section traces the fate of the agrarian reform plan both nationally and in the Pernambuco sugar zone. It argues that union leaders did not mobilise their members behind the reforms because they distrusted the federal government as well as members of the pro-reform alliance, and did not believe that the power of the local landowners could be broken by the proposals. -M.Amos
