Help Us Cover Autoworkers Fighting Back in Bolsonaro’s Stronghold

Mike Elk interviews workers outside of a Trox plant in Curitiba, Brasil (Paulo Passini)

By: Mike Elk October 18, 2022

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Folks,

This week, I will be traveling in Curitiba, Paraná, a stronghold of Bolsonaro support. In the state of Paraná, people voted for Bolsonaro 55% to 36%.  Paraná is famous for being the region where Lula was imprisoned in 2018 on corruption charges, of which he was later exonerated. (The prosecutor Sergio Moro, who took on Lula, is now a frontrunner for Paraná’s governor and also a Bolsonaro supporter.)

Earlier today, I was out with Metalworkers union SMC talking to workers in Curitiba, Brasil, entering a Trox air conditioning plant here at 6 am as it rained. While Bolsonaro has a lot of support, unions are working overtime to make sure that their members know about some of Bolsonaro’s anti-union policies.

In 2017, while covering the Nissan union drive in Canton, Mississippi, I met a group of Nissan workers from Paraná, who traveled every year for a decade to Canton, Mississippi, to show solidarity with the nearly two-decades-long struggle to unionize Nissan there. 

These Nissan workers will be guiding me around and showing me how they are fighting hard for Lula. 

Donate today to help Payday cover our costs for the trip to Curitiba. 

Thanks again for all the support.

Love & Solidarity,

Melk

About the Author

Mike Elk
Mike Elk is an Emmy-nominated labor reporter and alumni of the Guardian. A native of Pittsburgh, Elk grew up in a UE union family. Elk was the only American reporter in the room with Lula on the morning of the election & traveled with him to the Oval Office. Credited by the Washington Post for being the first reporter to track the strike wave systematically, Elk started Payday Report using his NLRB settlement from being illegally fired for union organizing in 2015. He lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh and attended journalism school at PUC-Rio de Janeiro. He speaks both Portuguese and Pittsburgh fluently. His email is [email protected]

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