The reinvention of paternalism: the Paulista Railway Company between the 1920s and 1940s

Abstract

This paper analyze the business strategy of Companhia Paulista to reinvent paternalistic production relations within the scope of the railway activity in São Paulo between 1920 and 1940. Responsible for establishing a series of control instruments on industrial scale work, railway companies had decisive influence on labor relations, both through its operation activities of transportation service and maintenance of railway material carried out in construction and repair workshops. Among the tools for maintaining the paternalistic logic of production relations in the railway sector, workers’ villages was one of the most effective capital control over labor, due to the impact on the private life and families of railway workers.