Class Conflict and Rising Inequalities How the Bourgeoisie United to Secure Approval for Labor Reform in Brazil

The article analyzes the action of the Brazilian industrial bourgeoisie in support of the labor reform approved in 2017. Such action can be understood as a unified response by different fractions of the industrial bourgeoisie to the intensification of strike activity, to the profit compression of non-financial Brazil-based companies and to the increase in labor costs in the manufacturing industry in the first decades of the twenty-first century, during the Workers’ Party ( Partido dos Trabalhadores , or PT) administrations (2003-16). It also argues that this dissatisfaction among the industrial bourgeoisie led to its distancing from the PT administrations, its support for Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016, and the unified action of different fractions of the bourgeoisie in favor of labor reform at the beginning of Michel Temer’s administration, which resulted in rising inequalities in Brazil.