Union Autonomy and the Principle of the "Purity": Reflections from an Interlocution between the Brazilian and Venezuelan Labor Laws

Abstract

The subject of this article is to make a dialogue between the Brazilian and Venezuelan labor laws, analyzing the possibility of application in Brazil of the principle of the union "purity" from legal system of Venezuela. It is quite common in the Brazilian reality the practice of conducts against the union autonomy. However, the labor law in Brazil, unlike Venezuela, does not have an efficient model of protection against anti-union attitudes and economic interferences in labor unions. The principle of union "purity" brought from the Venezuelan legislation gathers several standards related to the protection of the organization against actions that want to impair union freedom and autonomy. In Venezuela, the containment of anti-union attitudes goes beyond the temporary stability of the union leaders, reaching all workers who, in some way, have violated its union rights, both by the employer and by third parties. The Venezuelan legislation also prohibits the combination of professional and economic interests within the same union. Although Brazil and Venezuela have their legislation stained by the mark of contradiction related to union freedom and autonomy, there is no doubt that the Venezuelan legislation is much more prepared than the Brazilian one about union purity. On the other hand, the labor law in Brazil expressly allows the use of the comparative law as a source of normative integration, opening the door to the application of Venezuelan institutes to preserve the union independence. Brazil and Venezuela are members of MERCOSUR and countries with political, social and economic areas are similar, reinforcing the possibility of dialogue between their laws. The article has four parts; both first and second will address the characteristics of labor unionism in Brazil and Venezuela. In the third, will be analyzed the principle of union purity brought from the Venezuela legislation. In the last part, will be showed the possibility of its application in Brazil. The research is applied and essentially bibliographic. The methods are deductive, going from the general to the specific and the hypothetical-deductive, presenting possible solutions to the problem and putting out unsustainable ones. Finally the research is qualitative, intending to analyze the possibilities of transfer concepts and theories between different countries.