Definitive Report - Report No 120, 1971

Case No 616 (Brazil) - Complaint date: 18-NOV-69 - Closed

1. 77. This complaint by the Federation of Workers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries of the State of São Paulo (Brazil) was set forth in a communication-sent to the ILO direct-dated 18 November 1969. In a communication dated 7 January 1970, the complainants provided additional information. The complaint was duly referred to the Government for its comments, which were received in the form of a communication dated 26 May 1970.
2. 78. Brazil has not ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), but it has ratified the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

A. A. The complainants' allegations

• Allegations relating to the Arrest of Mr. Josue de Souza Pacheco, Treasurer of the Santo André (state of São Paulo) Union of Workers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries
  79. 79 The complainants allege that Mr. Josue de Souza Pacheco, Treasurer of the Santo André Union of Workers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries (a union affiliated to the organisation making the complaint) was arrested as a result of a decision taken by the National Information Service, a government organ.
  80. 80 The Government, in its observations, declares that the person in question was indeed arrested by members of the armed forces security services. However, the action taken had been limited to a simple check, and the person concerned had been released three hours afterwards.
  81. 81 This version of events is borne out by the complainants themselves, in a communication dated 7 January 1970, in which they say that Mr. Josue de Souza Pacheco was released within a few hours of having been detained and interrogated.
  82. 82 In these circumstances, the Committee recommends the Governing Body to decide that this aspect of the case calls for no further examination.
• Allegations relating to the Arrest and Imprisonment of Mr. Waldir Pereira, Official of the Santo André Union of Workers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries
  83. 83 The complainants allege that shortly after Mr. Josue de Souza Pacheco's arrest, Mr. Waldir Pereira, an official in the same union, was arrested and imprisoned.
  84. 84 The Government, in its observations, says that the arrest had nothing to do with Mr. Waldir Pereira's trade union activities. The Government had been struck by the similarity between articles appearing in the trade union journal Sindiquim (the official organ of the union) and articles which had been included in Resistance, a clandestine bulletin of a subversive kind, and it was with a view to determining whether they were the work of the same author that the arrest had been made. The idea in making the arrest had been to throw some light on this.
  85. 85 However, in the additional information supplied on 7 January 1970, the complainants' state that Mr. Pereira was detained in solitary confinement for twenty-two days, so that an investigation might be made into activities in connection with movements considered to be subversive and contrary to public order.

The Committee's recommendations

1. 86. From what both complainants and Government have to say, it seems clear that the action taken against Mr. Pereira had nothing to do with the latter's trade union activities. In these circumstances, the Committee recommends the Governing Body to decide that this aspect of the case, and accordingly the case as a whole, calls for no further examination.