Subway workers strike tests Tarcísio’s experience – 03/23/2023 – Panel SA

The performance that the now governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), will present in conducting the subway workers’ strike has raised the curiosity of truck drivers who have negotiated with him in recent years.

As Minister of Infrastructure in the Bolsonaro government at the time, Tarcísio was responsible for interacting with drivers to try to pacify the string of threats of strikes on the roads and was often seen as a skilled, albeit firm, negotiator.

In one of Tarcísio’s dialogues with the truck drivers, which was made public through a WhatsApp audio in 2019, the then minister ended the conversation with a “we’re together”.

For Wallace Landim, known as Chorão, one of the leaders who emerged in the great stoppage of 2018, the context this time is different. If before Tarcísio needed to listen to other sectors of the government, now he has a pen in his hand, says the truck driver.

“Today he has the pen, maybe he will answer. But Tarcísio likes to go to the clash. This is his profile. Before, when we would discuss some issues with the then minister regarding transport, he already put it in the he was going to try. He said what he could and couldn’t do, because it involved other ministries. Now, in the position he is in today, he has autonomy to decide”, says Chorão.

In the opinion of José Roberto Stringasci, from the ANTB (National Transport Association of Brazil), most of the truck drivers who participated in the negotiations with Tarcísio were laypeople, and the profile of subway workers is different.

“It wasn’t difficult for him, with promises, to take these drivers several times to Brasília until most got tired of going because they no longer had financial or psychological conditions. In São Paulo, as governor, he will take something very different, because here he will be dealing with professional trade unionists who are knowledgeable about the law and who will not be put off by any empty promises”, he says.

Plinio Dias, president of the CNTRC (National Road Cargo Transport Council), agrees. “Tarcísio didn’t do anything for the category. He was a very difficult person to deal with, it had to be the way he wanted it and that was it. What he did was to dismantle all the unions that truck drivers made”, says Dias.

Joana Cunha with Paulo Ricardo Martins It is Diego Felix

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