Labor conflicts and the super-exploitation of rural labor under Brazilian dependent capitalism: an inventory of strikes and acts of resistance in the countryside between 2000 and 2022

Abstract The aim of this study is to survey the experiences of rural strikes in Brazil over the first two decades of the 21st century. To do this, we took a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive approach using bibliographical and documentary research techniques, the fruit of an award notice promoted by the Observatory of Contemporary Capitalism of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. We used as sources the data produced by the strike monitoring system of the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socio-Economic Studies (DIEESE) between 2000 and 2022 and the records of the labour conflicts section of the documents ‘Conflicts in the Countryside’ produced by the Pastoral Land Commission between 2000 and 2021. Among the main results was the existence of 56 strike movements recorded by DIEESE and 154 resistance actions in labour conflicts, according to the CPT. It was concluded that observing the incidence of this phenomenon in the context of transformations in Brazilian capitalism sheds light on some of the elements that shape the overexploitation of rural labour in the country. We hope that this text will serve as a guiding tool for resistance to this situation, as well as for new research approaches.