A-Infos (en) Brazil, OSL: Building a unified strike of education and public sector workers in São Paulo from the ground up! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The march on May 20th, from Largo da Batata to Palácio dos Bandeirantes 
in São Paulo, should be understood as part of a broader process of 
organization and confrontation, whose central challenge is to transform 
indignation into organized social force. It cannot be seen as the end 
point of mobilizations in education and public universities at the 
beginning of 2026. The true objective of the mobilization should be to 
strengthen ongoing strikes, expand work stoppages, and build, from the 
grassroots, a general strike of education and public sector workers 
against the privatization, dismantling, and repression policies carried 
out by successive governments of the State of São Paulo, specifically by 
the current governor, Tarcísio de Freitas, of the Republicanos party.

We will not march to the Palace to perform a symbolic gesture or simply 
to undermine the current government's electoral performance. We advocate 
taking to the streets to boost the concrete organization of workers and 
students, strengthen occupations, expand the categories in struggle, and 
advance in building a movement capable of inflicting real defeats on the 
dominant classes' project for the public service in São Paulo, 
especially in education. Rights are not won by changing governments, but 
by the collective strength of the organized working class and direct 
mobilization.

Unifying struggles based on concrete demands

The unity necessary to confront the government and university 
administrations cannot be built on vague slogans or top-down agreements. 
It needs to emerge from the concrete demands of the categories in struggle.

Technical-administrative staff and university professors face squeezed 
salaries, outsourcing, and precarious working conditions. Students fight 
for student retention, housing, assistance, and against the dismantling 
of public universities. In basic and technical education, teachers 
grapple with overcrowded classrooms, class closures, the rise of private 
education platforms, the erosion of pedagogical autonomy, precarious 
contracts, and a lack of adequate working conditions. Meanwhile, 
students in public schools suffer from a lack of infrastructure, 
insufficient investment in laboratories, libraries, and adequate food, 
as well as increasing dropout rates driven by the need to work in 
increasingly precarious conditions. At the same time, workers in general 
face high costs, super-exploitation, and fight for demands such as the 
end of the 6x1 work schedule and a reduction in working hours without a 
reduction in pay.

At the same time as it dismantles public services, the government 
deepens state repression, especially against poor and marginalized 
youth. The increase in violent police operations in the peripheries, 
massacres, abusive approaches, and the militarization of popular 
territories express the same authoritarian policy that seeks to impose, 
by force, attacks on education, public service, and social rights. 
Police violence in the favelas and the presence of the Military Police 
within universities are part of the same project of social control and 
repression of popular struggles.

The struggle waged at USP, Unicamp, and Unesp against the presence of 
the Military Police on campuses concretely expresses this necessary 
unity. The invasion of university spaces by the Military Police, 
authorized by the Tarcísio government, represents a direct attack on 
university autonomy and the right to student and union organization and 
mobilization. Defending "Out with the Military Police from the Campus" 
is not an abstract slogan: it is defending the public university against 
repression placed at the service of the rectors and business interests.

What threatens the government is the advance of strikes and direct 
mobilization.

The Tarcísio government and the business sectors that direct the state's 
educational policy will not be defeated by institutional speeches or 
parliamentary pressure. What effectively threatens the project of 
privatization and subordination of the university to the market is the 
advance of strikes, occupations, and direct action organized from the 
mobilization of the grassroots.

For example, the strike and occupation of the USP (University of São 
Paulo) rector's office brought the model of university management, 
subordinated to political and economic elites, back into question. The 
State's response was police repression, with bombs, batons, and violence 
against students and workers. This demonstrates that the government 
recognizes where the real danger to its interests lies: in the capacity 
of workers and students to paralyze services, occupy spaces, and expand 
collective mobilization.

Therefore, the main challenge for the coming period is to transform 
actions and marches into instruments to expand existing strikes and 
encourage new work stoppages. The march on the 20th should serve to 
connect categories, strengthen strike committees, expand assemblies, and 
advance in the construction of an indefinite general strike in 
education, articulated with the entire public service.

Against the emptying of the struggle and the electoral logic

We defend active participation in mobilizations and reject both 
positions that distance themselves from concrete struggle and attempts 
to transform the movement into an electoral platform or instrument of 
political conciliation.

The construction of a consequential mobilization requires political 
independence from governments, university bureaucracies, and the 
business interests that support the privatization project.

The central task is to strengthen self-organization from the grassroots, 
articulating students, education workers, and other sectors of the 
public service in a common struggle against the dismantling of public 
services and state repression.

Only collective mobilization can defeat the privatization and repression 
project.

The history of São Paulo's universities demonstrates that neoliberal 
attacks always advance accompanied by authoritarianism and repression. 
This was the case with the Serra Decrees in 2007 and is happening again 
now under the Tarcísio government. But history also shows that 
government retreats only occurred when there were strikes, occupations, 
and massive mobilization.

Recent experiences of struggle at USP show that it is possible to 
simultaneously confront the state government, the university 
administrations, and the university bureaucracy. Each strike built, each 
assembly strengthened, and each occupation organized expands the 
capacity for resistance of the working class and youth.

Everyone to the march on the 20th as an important step towards building 
a Unified General Strike

We will stand alongside education and public service workers, students, 
teachers, administrative staff, and workers in general in the march on 
May 20th, at 2 PM, gathering at Largo da Batata, strengthening a 
mobilization process that must go beyond the march itself and point 
towards building a Unified General Strike against the privatization, 
dismantling, and repression imposed by the Tarcísio government and the 
ruling classes. The march should serve to unify concrete struggles 
against wage cuts, outsourcing, the precariousness of schools and 
universities, cuts in student support programs, the advancement of the 
privatization of public education, and the growing police repression 
against students, workers, and peripheral youth.

Libertarian Socialist Organization
May 2026

https://socialismolibertario.net/construir-pelas-bases-uma-greve-unificada-da-educacao-e-do-funcionalismo-publico-de-sp/
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