Labor and social movements: Their influences on the emergence of alternative practices for generating employment and income

Abstract

This article results from a dissertation onthe self-anagement practices of solidarity-based economic enterprises submitted to the Graduate Program in Social Sciences of Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. It describes two lines of socio-historical analysis: the first one refers to the development of the views and practices of labor and their consequences on the structure of Brazilian society; the second one discusses the development of social movements, particularly in Brazilian society, from the 1950s onwards. Finally, the article describes how these two lines converge and, in the mid-1990s, give rise to a social dynamics that stimulates the emergence of new practices in the generation of employment and income. It shows that the promotion of such practices in times of global economic crisis is relevant and crucial. In Brazil Solidarity Economy emerges as an alternative social movement that, through its practices, recovers values such as cooperation, solidarity and valuing of workers.

Key words: labor, social movements, solidarity economy.