The Struggle Has a Motorcycle Engine: Paulo Galo, Lisbon, and the New Cartographies of Labor

In the narrow streets of Lisbon's Intendente quarter, where traditional azulejo tiles meet contemporary murals, Paulo Roberto da Silva Lima—better known as Paulo Galo or "Galo de Luta"—adjusts his camera equipment. The Brazilian activist who once navigated São Paulo's traffic on a motorcycle as a delivery driver is now documenting a different kind of urban landscape, one where the struggles he helped organize in Brazil echo through Portugal's immigrant communities.

Galo is currently in Portugal filming a documentary about the importance of immigrants in Europe, working with local movement Vida Justa and conducting community meetings. His project emerges at a moment when Portugal's political landscape has shifted dramatically rightward, with the far-right Chega party winning 60 seats in 2025 elections, overtaking the Socialist Party to achieve second place.

From São Paulo's Asphalt to European Streets

Galo's activism began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he co-organized the "Breque dos Apps"—a series of strikes by gig economy workers demanding better conditions from delivery platforms like iFood, Rappi, and Uber Eats. As a motoboy himself, he understood firsthand how algorithmic management had transformed urban labor into what critics call a digital sweatshop.

The documentary idea emerged after Galo traveled to Europe last year and met immigrants from various nationalities working in England and Italy. In London, he observed that 80% of delivery workers were Brazilian. This discovery revealed a transnational dimension to the precarious labor he had been organizing against in Brazil.

"We feel a necessity to connect the struggles in Brazil with the struggles happening around the world."

Portugal's New Political Reality

The timing of Galo's documentary coincides with significant political shifts in Portugal. Chega, which translates as "Enough," is led by 41-year-old André Ventura, a former trainee priest who became a television football commentator. Ventura has argued that "the country feels the pressure of migration in its various dimensions, in housing, health, security and crime, but also in diversity and cultural pressure".

In September 2024, thousands protested against 'uncontrolled immigration' in a rally organized by Chega, while counter-movements have organized their own responses. In October 2024, after police shot 43-year-old Odair Moniz from Cape Verde, thousands protested police violence in a demonstration organized by Vida Justa, the same rights organization now collaborating with Galo.

Beyond Race: The Political Economy of Immigration

Galo's analysis challenges common explanations for anti-immigrant sentiment. "What we want to tell in this documentary is about the importance of immigrants in Europe and that this far-right persecution of immigrants is much more than just racial tension. It has to do with the struggles that immigrant workers have provoked in Europe and that the far-right wants these struggles to leave their territory," he explains.

This framing recontextualizes immigration debates around labor organizing rather than cultural conflict. "By persecuting immigrants, they are targeting the struggles. And it's not just a question of skin color, not just a question of race, culture and ethnicity—it is also that, but not only that—it's the fear of the power of the people," Galo argues.

His observations reveal contradictions within immigrant communities themselves. In London, he notes, "almost all are Bolsonaro supporters, but they are, above all, workers—the materiality imposes itself, we don't enter into this context". He questions how workers laboring 12 to 16 hours daily can develop political consciousness, suggesting that exhaustion rather than ideology often shapes political choices.

Documenting Resistance in Real Time

Galo's current agenda in Portugal includes filming, community discussions, and social actions, including support for Vida Justa in the Talude community in Loures. Vida Justa describes itself as "the platform that gives voice to the neighborhoods," having prevented evictions and demolitions while contesting police violence and structural racism.

Community discussions and a solidarity dinner to raise funds for the documentary are planned at Favela LX in Lisbon, spaces that serve as both cultural centers and organizing hubs for immigrant communities.

The documentary project represents more than simple documentation. Priscila Araújo, another labor rights activist collaborating on the project, reflects that "the worker will support whoever communicates with him. He is angry, this worker feels exploited. So you look at who is translating this feeling of his? Who is connecting with these feelings of his? It's whoever manages to dialogue with this feeling he is carrying".

Europe's Postcolonial Reckonings

Portugal's position as Galo's filming location carries particular historical weight. The country's colonial relationships with Brazil, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde have created migration patterns that bring former colonial subjects to the metropole as contemporary workers. Chega leader Ventura has expressed agreement with Trump's mass deportation plans, stating that "safe countries have strong borders", reflecting broader European anxieties about postcolonial migration.

Yet these same workers have become essential to Portugal's economy, creating the contradiction that drives much contemporary political tension. They are simultaneously needed and resented, welcomed and targeted.

The Global Circuit of Struggle

Galo's trajectory from São Paulo motoboy to international documentarian illustrates how labor struggles now operate across national boundaries. His motorcycle may have been replaced by a camera, but the mission remains consistent: to document, connect, and amplify working-class resistance.

"This is not a left or right movement," he insists, focusing instead on material conditions that transcend traditional political categories. In a Europe where immigration is increasingly treated as a crisis to be managed, Galo's project reframes it as a struggle to be acknowledged—one that cannot be resolved through deportations or border walls, but only through addressing the systemic inequalities that drive both migration and exploitation.

The documentary, still in production, promises to reveal how the battles fought on São Paulo's streets now echo in London delivery stations and Lisbon's immigrant neighborhoods, tracing the global circuits through which both capital and resistance now flow.