The blue collar and the ballot box: metamorphoses of workers’ associativism in Pernambuco at the dawn of the republic

• Main Author: Felipe Azevedo Souza
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) 2020-03-01
• Series: Revista Mundos do Trabalho
• Subjects: workers; political culture; elections; associativism; republic
• Online Access: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/mundosdotrabalho/article/view/1984-9222.2020.e71472

The Liga Operária was the first organization in Pernambuco to run elections with a programmatic agenda focused on the workers concerns, its candidates were representatives of the working class. This happened in the first republican year. The Liga's trajectory encompasses a moment of transition in the political actions of organized urban workers. The new regime, the abolition of slavery, and the spread of socialist ideals have biased a considerable renewal of symbols (the pride in wearing the proletarian blue collar) and strategies for political action (the dispute at the polls) of that group. In order to dimension the limits and possibilities of this scenario, this article seeks to put in perspective the past performance of the members of the Liga through the associative universe of the capital of Pernambuco - through mutualists, catholic brotherhoods and abolitionist societies. And, also, to analyze the electoral trajectory of the group.