Geraldo Off Line On BBC
Daniel Rubio
Geraldo Off Line
Geraldo da Souza was sacked by his employers, Ford Brazil, on December 22, 1998, along with two thousand fellow workers at Ford's Sao Paulo car plant. They'd done nothing wrong - except to entrust their livelihoods to a vast multinational employer bound to the vagaries of the global economy and the company's head-office strategists.
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When the Russian economy went into tailspin in early '98, international capital - fearing repercussions in other emerging markets - fulfilled its own prophecy by withdrawing from Brazil: the government was forced to raise interest rates, local consumption and production fell, and Geraldo lost his job.
Problems without borders require solutions without borders. But Geraldo himself has his hands full, with a home to keep (indeed, without a job he may soon have to borrow against it), work to seek, and protest marches to attend.
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So TV reporter John Alpert traverses the world on his behalf, interviewing representatives of capital and labour, and briefing Geraldo via an internet link-up on their reactions and reflections. He meets economists and unionists, made as well as broken businessmen, and slum tenants forced to sleep eight to a room in the most inequitable society on earth. Ford sends a fax, insisting that it remains dedicated to the Brazilian market. Does that include Geraldo? The World Bank's Gobind Nankini suggests we look at the bigger picture: there's lots of light at the end of a not-too-long tunnel.
"He says, 'hold on, Geraldo,' and everything is going to be okay," Alpert translates. "I feel very small and helpless," responds the man at the other end of the line.
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Geraldo does eventually get his job back, but he's only one of a handful - over 90 per cent of those laid off are less lucky. How can they share the confidence in the Brazilian economy of millionaire banker Mario Garnero, financing the construction of the world's tallest building in Sao Paulo?
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