This article looks to contribute to the discussion on transformations in the Brazilian automobile industry and their consequences for workers by focusing on the debate over mechanisms of working class reproduction. The text examines in particular the processes of socializing new generations and the ways of transmitting a 'working class culture,' involving both the constitution of a feeling of class belonging and mechanisms for denying and/or escaping the working class condition. The discussion focuses on the analysis of a specific case: the history of the professional training school of Mercedes-Benz in Brazil and its modalities of socialization and preparation for manufacturing work. Founded some fifty years ago, the school is run at the Mercedes-Benz plant in São Bernardo do Campo in partnership with SENAI. I discuss the role played by the school in the life of various generations of Mercedes-Benz workers in order to show how the institution's training and qualifications have acquired new meanings over recent decades as a result of transformations in the work market and changes in the perceptions of auto workers.
Auto workers; Working class; Senai; Mercedes-Benz; Socialization; Class culture