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During the dictatorship (1964-1985), the authoritarian political system enforced the organization of the labor movement by law in Brazil. The government aimed at keeping control of workers' organization by establishing the monopoly of their representation, centralizing control, and imposing a uniform labor structure. One prevalent argument in the literature is that this corporatist and monopolistic union structure would lead unions to be less democratic and less organized. Contrary to this mainstream thought, I found evidence that in spite of the corporatist and monopolistic regime, rural labor unions differed from each other and represented workers successfully in the state of Maranhio, Brazil, because there has been competition among unions and non-union organizations for the union leadership.

Evidence presented here shows that in certain contexts the existence of monopoly unions did not constrain change and pluralism, but rather enabled competition among different streams for the union leadership. The existence of one sole labor structure forced worker-related groups to organize and compete for the leadership role within the unions' formal structure, because formal unions had human, financial, and organizational resources, and were the only organizations allowed to represent workers in judicial and administrative arenas. To compete for the leadership of the union, workers created parasyndical organizations, the so-called opposition movements, and ended-up creating internal competition. This internal competition generated a constant pressure on unions' and workers' leadership, fostering responsiveness to workers' demands. Later …