Major US and European corporations collaborated intimately with Latin American military dictatorships in the s and s, fingering militant workers for arrest, torture and often death, according to an article that appeared this week in the Brazilian daily O Globo. Based on newly released secret police documents as well as the work of Brazilian historians, the article, written by Brazilian journalist Jose Casado, establishes that auto companies, including General Motors, Chrysler and Volkswagen, the Firestone tire company and other corporations routinely handed over lists of suspected union activists to the secret police and clandestine death squads.
This state-corporate repression was so effective in Brazil that none of the major companies registered a single strike in nine years— to The military came to power in Brazil through a coup orchestrated with the support of Washington and the CIA.
By , the regime had turned to intense repression, suspending habeas corpus and dragging thousands of people from their homes, workplaces and schools to be thrown into prison, tortured and summarily executed. The foreign corporations welcomed this repression and sought to support it in every way possible.
But the collaboration went well beyond mere financial support. Their aim was to establish a permanent body to coordinate repression of Brazilian workers.
Spokesmen for the multinational corporations contacted by O Globo claimed ignorance of these arrangements. One participant in this state-corporate setup, however, was more open about it. The dictatorship was itself keenly interested in spying on the working class, which it recognized as its most dangerous enemy. Under military rule, the government dictated salary increases, and its spies were told to carefully monitor reactions within the factories and the unions when these decrees were issued.
