In the '60s and '70s, leading companies cooperated with the dictatorships of Brazil and Argentina to crack down on trade unionists.
Volkswagen, Phillips, Fire-stone, Chrysler and other companies helped in the repression of dictatorships in Latin America, especially Argentina and Brazil. So says an investigation by the newspaper O Globo, which publishes new documents in the Department of Social and Political Order in Brazil. The documents show that companies formed with security agencies in Brazil a "working group" to identify employees who were trade union militancy, who were dismissed and in many cases tortured and killed.
The coup against Joao Goulart in 1964 occurred. In November '66, the beginning of a very hard period of repression that would extend for three years, representatives from General Motors, Volkswagen, Chrysler, Firestone, Phillips and Constanta met with the head of the Department of Political Order of St. Paul and an army officer. According to the minutes of the meeting, has O Globo, discussed the "problems" in factories and created a focal point.
documentation, collected and disclosed by journalist José Casado, notes that companies delivered to intelligence services lists of workers considered suspect, and kept over time a partnership "strong" but "discreet." "We were defending our business of terrorists, subversion," said Synesio de Oliveira, a representative del grupo Constanta (empresa incorporada a la Phillips en 1998).
Sobre la base de documentos obtenidos en Washington, San Pablo y Buenos Aires, la investigación revela que Volkswagen "montó un departamento interno" con agentes de la DOPS y militares para espiar a los trabajadores, mientras que Chrysler, Scania y Firestone "crearon aparatos de espionaje" en las fábricas.
Por ejemplo, un documento fechado en julio de 1978 por la filial brasileña de la firma sueca Saab-Scania plantea a la policía el caso de dos trabajadores cuyos despidos "se deben al hecho de haber participado del movimiento huelguista".
Las empresas fueron consultadas por O Globo, pero todas negaron los hechos o aseguraron indicated they did not know what the documentation. Volkswagen said it had a line "apolitical" and relationship "advanced" with their employees, while Chrysler said Firestone and "ignoring" the issue.
In Argentina there was a similar pattern. The U.S. Embassy reported to Washington between April 1976 and June 1978 on events that showed "the strong cooperation between managers and security agencies."
One of the best known cases is that of Mercedes Benz.
Carlos Ruckauf In 1975, Labour Minister, ordered the dismissal of 115 workers for political reasons. In 1976, he was under the dictatorship, all union leaders Plant Gonzalez Catan were kidnapped. Of the 16 delegates, 14 are still missing. Their families and the survivors managed to create last week, an investigative commission.
Mercedes Benz had a strange behavior with the families of its missing employees, whom they continued to pay the salary. Some even claimed compensation for unspecified reasons. In contrast, workers who stopped going to work because they risked being kidnapped were fired.
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Buenos Aires, May 16, 2005
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