Development and the Working Class in Latin America

Overview

• What is Development?

• Bringing the Working Class (Back) In

• The Chilean Textile Industry 1930-1970

• The Cordones Industriales 1972

What is Development?

• Development necessitates a transformation of production, exchange, and in working practices

• It is those who directly face these changes in the workplaces that come to contest them

• Struggles at the point of production give meaning to political protests against policies and firms

• These place limits on particular policies and practices, but also provide opportunities

Bringing the Working Class (Back) In

• Research is on experiences of industrial development and workers in Latin America

• Trade unions form the conventional focus in analysing the role of labour

• Politicisation of struggles in work give meaning to the actions of these representative organisations

• Focus on the workplace and point of production struggles shifts focus on to the workers and the importance of their daily struggles experienced as active social subjects and contested as a class

“it is necessary to consider the wage-labourer insofar as she exists outside

capital…it is time to rise above the level of the political economy of capital, which constitutes only a

moment within an adequate totality”

(Lebowitz 1992: 49)

The Chilean Textile Industry: A Case Study

• Key economic sector and a key example of worker militancy throughout the period

• Highly fragmented and concentrated, low levels of productivity, advanced technology in large firms, and close relations with the state

• Textiles were the most dynamic sector in 1930s/1940s; stagnation and decline began during 1950s/1960s

• Unions were large in large firms, but a tension existed between ‘yellow’ and the Communists

Workers’ Newspapers: A Note on Methodology

• Problems include political bias and small numbers of these ‘specialist’ publications

• A vital part of the historical record on the popular history of workers in the context of ongoing processes of change

• The main role of the workers’ press is the linking of

specific grievances with the broader political demands of reforming/transforming society

• Workers’ press plays a role that is both representative and formative

Workers and Limits on Development

• From the 1930s textile workers experienced increasing levels of organisation and growth

• Industry growth under state and domestic capital saw tensions with paternalist discipline and failures to match wages to inflation

• Communist affiliations during the 1940s were key – persistent factory floor grievances were extended and given increasing political meaning

• 1950s and 1960s saw intensification of this process as stagnation and repression were interpreted through historical experiences

• State and capital sought to rationalise production and increase productivity

• Workers’ response saw increased strike activity and growing mobilisation

• The ‘anomaly’ of Chilean socialism

Cordones Industriales and Alternative Development

• Electoral victory socialist UP government in 1970 led to nationalisation of key economic sectors

• Nationalisation inspired the seizure of a wide range of factories in support of the government

• Mixed reaction by government, but movement gained increased momentum through 1972/3

• Rightist reaction led to the consolidation of worker occupations and formation of the cordones industriales and comandos comunales

Documentary by Chilean filmaker Patricio Guzmán

Part 3 ‘El Poder Popular’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQPgBR8sO5A