Trade unions and justice: judicial mechanisms and exercise of rights

This paper adopts a perspective that recognizes the leadership of the workers in the defense of their collective interest. It approaches the struggle for recognition of trade unions as legitimate actors in the exercise of rights. It shows the attempts of these actors in order to participate as parts in the proceedings (substitutos processuais), as representatives of the employees in collective actions. It also deals with their strategies for promoting changes in the judicial restrictions of the right to strike, specially the prohibiting interdictions used to keep strikers away from firms and banks. Along with these subjects another important initiative of trade unions has been the use, in the collective disputes of legal nature ("dissídios coletivos de natureza juridical"), of the ILO Convention 158 and constitutional principles, in order to conquer favorable judicial interpretations and the right of collective negotiation in face of collective dismissals.