(disclaimer: also Brazilian, even if I don't live in Brazil anymore)
I have mixed experience with unions in Brazil, the fact that they are mandated makes it almost like a scam, a part of your wages go towards union contributions but rarely do you get anything out of that. Most directors at unions are in it for political powers as the bigger unions are major players in politics(as seen that our ex-president is a former unionist).
On one hand, unions can provide negotiation power, specially in class action suits, including unfair dismissal. But most of the time I've seen unions collude with companies and associations to provide underwhelming benefits and wages that are below inflation.
In some cases such as medicine and dentistry they are solid credentials of many professionals and I take it as mostly positive.
In the case of engineering it should follow the same as the engineer's union is a very strong powerhouse that requires quite high minimum wages for engineers(IIRC 8.5x the national minimum wage). However this has led many companies to use a loophole where engineers are hired with a different job title, performing the same job, just so that they don't have to pay that minimum, while sometimes even requiring that said engineer is registered with the union. As computer science is not engineering, even though some computer engineers are qualified as such, I've never met a programmer that has a proper engineer contract.
I have mixed experience with unions in Brazil, the fact that they are mandated makes it almost like a scam, a part of your wages go towards union contributions but rarely do you get anything out of that. Most directors at unions are in it for political powers as the bigger unions are major players in politics(as seen that our ex-president is a former unionist).
On one hand, unions can provide negotiation power, specially in class action suits, including unfair dismissal. But most of the time I've seen unions collude with companies and associations to provide underwhelming benefits and wages that are below inflation.
In some cases such as medicine and dentistry they are solid credentials of many professionals and I take it as mostly positive.
In the case of engineering it should follow the same as the engineer's union is a very strong powerhouse that requires quite high minimum wages for engineers(IIRC 8.5x the national minimum wage). However this has led many companies to use a loophole where engineers are hired with a different job title, performing the same job, just so that they don't have to pay that minimum, while sometimes even requiring that said engineer is registered with the union. As computer science is not engineering, even though some computer engineers are qualified as such, I've never met a programmer that has a proper engineer contract.