ABSTRACT
The strike actions that ended the decade of the 1970s not only marked a resurgence of labor as a political force in Brazilian society but also contributed decisively to deteriorating the legitimacy of the military dictatorship. By the eleventh day of the strike movement the Ministry of Labor declared federal intervention in the striking unions, canceled the union leaders’ mandates, and imposed appointees to head the unions and bring the strike actions to an end. The year-to-year variation in the national patterns of strike actions clearly reflects the political and economic factors which characterized the transition from dictatorship to civilian rule. Governmental responses to the threats of economic instability and political popular unrest resulted in economic plans offering temporary relief from the pressures of inflation and in a relative decline in working-class strike activity though never a return to previous lower levels of worker protest strength.
