Latin America | Everyday state power in Brazil

Salvador/Bahía, Brazil's fifth-largest city with 2.5 million inhabitants: a four-lane highway, the vertical tropical sun burning on the skin. Even the walk to the domestic workers' union Sindoméstico conveys a sense of the class relations in South America's most populous country. Although 7 million Brazilians work as domestic workers – the total number of all regularly employed industrial workers is not much higher at 11.5 million – their union is hard to find. The small house in which Sindoméstico is headquartered is squeezed between a highway bridge and a slum built into the hillside; it doesn't show up properly on Google Maps. But passersby are surprisingly familiar with Sindoméstico. Repeatedly, they say: "Straight ahead here, then just before the large driveway, turn right."

Milca Martins, the 55-year-old president of the union, isn't surprised. Sindomésticos only reaches a fraction of the 7 million Brazilians who work as cleaners, nannies, gardeners, or chauffeurs for wealthy families. Yet the waiting room in the union building is full: More than a dozen people – all women, almost all Black, some with children – are sitting under a large fan, waiting for legal advice and watching a television broadcasting reports on gang violence and police raids.

"It's very difficult for domestic workers to organize themselves," explains Martins, as she clears a corner of the office for the interview. Under the governments of the social democratic Workers' Party (PT), and especially through a 2015 law that integrated domestic workers into normal labor law, some things have improved. "Nevertheless, most still work without a registered contract," explains Martins. "Many are unaware of their rights—or are afraid of losing their jobs if they register with the state." In fact, the number of regularly employed domestic workers has actually fallen since 2015: from 1.64 million to 1.34 million today.

The biggest obstacle to union organizing, he says, is isolation. "Many of us older people were taken to the families we work for as children. That means we were practically kidnapped and lived among strangers without any rights." The union's most important activity, therefore, is an open meeting on Sundays where people can get to know other domestic workers.

The treasurer of Sindomésticos, who joins the interview a few minutes later, immediately agrees. Francisco Xavier de Santana, also over 50, also Black, is the only man in the union building this morning: "As a domestic worker, you live alone, almost like a shadow. You don't talk much, you're never asked anything. Because of the isolation, many can't even start their own families. For me, it was so liberating to find a community here." Because 90 percent of domestic workers are women, however, men are often embarrassed to join the union.

When asked whether they see their work in the tradition of abolitionist movements, i.e., the struggles to abolish slavery, the two union members immediately understand what to do. The reality of domestic workers cannot be separated from the history of slavery, which was only abolished in Brazil in 1888. "On the plantations, there were two types of slaves: some had to work in the fields, others in the household," explains Martins. After slavery, little actually changed for many: On the plantations and fazendas, they remained at the mercy of their bosses.

For Martins, who makes no secret of the fact that, like many domestic workers, she suffered sexual violence at the hands of one of her employers, class relations are inextricably linked to racism and sexism: "Two-thirds of us are Black or brown, many earn less than the legal minimum wage of 1,500 reais (233 euros). And for a long time, housing and food were deducted from our wages – for a stuffy room without windows."

Because domestic workers are rarely able to wage successful labor disputes, political reforms are all the more important. This is one of the reasons why unionists strongly identify with the PT governments. "Before the 2015 reform, we had to work all day if the boss wanted us to," explains Martins. "The new law stipulates fixed working hours, paid overtime, statutory vacation, and unemployment insurance."

"Many of us were taken as children to the families we work for. That means we were essentially kidnapped and lived among strangers without any rights."

Milca Martins Domestic Workers Union

The two unionists therefore have a surprisingly dialectical relationship with the state: When speaking of President Lula, they refer to him as "our president." When it comes to political power in general, however, the term "murderous state" quickly comes to mind. Indeed, the Brazilian military police are waging a barely concealed war against the Black population. In Bahía alone, the state with the highest proportion of Afro-Brazilians, the police shot more people in 2023 than in the entire United States: 1,700 people, most of them young Black men.

Trade unionist Martins sees a clear connection here: There's barely any social infrastructure provided in the slums, while at the same time, large amounts of money are spent on the armed presence of the state. And during their raids, the military police ruthlessly shoot residents. The fact that the true-crime documentaries flickering across the screens in the waiting room of Sindomésticos create acceptance for this police terror is no longer even noticed by the trade unionists. State violence has become so normalized.

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Anthropologist Juliana Borges, who works in São Paulo, describes the situation very similarly to union member Martins. Although Brazil's largest industrial metropolis is significantly less Black than Salvador, the penal and police system there is also primarily directed against the non-white population. Borges, who grew up in a poor neighborhood and is active in the abolitionist movement, considers the mass incarceration of Black people to be a central feature of Brazilian capitalism. "With 800,000 prisoners, we have the third-largest prison population in the world. Almost all of them are in prison because of the drug war," explains Borges. "Paradoxically, the penal and police state was expanded during a period of relative prosperity. When the greatest social progress was actually made possible under the second Lula government from 2007 to 2011 thanks to food and housing programs, the drug war was intensified at the same time." In fact, the prison population has increased almost tenfold since the 1990s.

From Borges's perspective, drug policy has served as a tool for controlling the Black population since the early 19th century. "It is striking that the marijuana prohibition imposed in the 1830s focused solely on the users. Marijuana was accepted. What worried the elites was the spiritual, medicinal, and recreational use of the racialized population. The enslaved were expected to work through it."

Borges sees the intensification of the drug war over the past two decades as a reflection of this tradition. The public stigmatizes youth from the favelas as killing machines of the drug mafia. "In reality, most prisoners are young people who have never been convicted before. Only 15 percent are serving time for violent crimes. And almost all of them come from poor neighborhoods."

In this context, Borges speaks of a right-wing "punitive populism" imported from the United States. The mass criminalization of the Black working class is being facilitated by the fact that police witness statements are now considered sufficient for a conviction. "This no longer takes into account the fact that police officers have an interest in convictions because they count towards their promotion."

Borges considers the idea that organized crime, which controls many slums, can be contained by means of penal apparatuses absurd. "The most well-known mafia organization in Brazil, the Comando Vermelho (Red Command), was founded in prison in the late 1970s. Brazilian prisons are recruiting grounds for these groups. The young people are locked up for the smallest offenses and come out as criminals."

Against this background, Borges considers the accusation made by many Afro-Brazilian organizations that the state is committing a veritable "genocide" against the Black population to be by no means unreasonable. "Of the nearly 50,000 people killed in Brazil each year, 80 to 90 percent are Afro-Brazilian. Almost all of the prisoners are young Black people." Both criminal organizations and police repression are mechanisms for controlling the poor population.

The alternation of government between the PT and the far right at the national level has played little role in this development. For Borges, this can only be stopped by an abolitionist movement. "The most important political goals for me would be the legalization of drugs, which would undermine the militarization of slums, and a reform of fiscal policy. Instead of always debating the police, we should fight for the mandatory establishment of certain social spending." The Brazilian Constitution already requires municipalities to spend at least a quarter of their budgets on education. Other social spending could also be established. "We would have to make it clear that the money currently spent on weapons and surveillance technology could also finance a house or water connections."

Borges hopes that even police officers can be taught that military buildup does not guarantee security. "In Brazil, police officers today kill themselves more often than they are shot by strangers. Who benefits from such a system?" In South America's largest country, it is clear, like nowhere else, how closely the expansion of state apparatuses of violence and social inequality are intertwined.