The Junta and the trade unions
Gould, William B.
Powers's research competence); or of the assertion that the Kennedys wanted "a. sharp acceleration of covert raids on Cuba" in the early stages of the missile crisis (142); or of the story of...
...Yet, simultaneously, the government has announced new labor legislation which is designed to restore trade union freedoms which have been suspended since the Junta came to power...
...The strike was the most serious since the military regime of President Pinochet seized power more than six years ago...
...We have heard much in recent months about the need to revive the CIA...
...This balkanization has been formulated so as to remove all federation influence--the federations constituting one of ~he main sources of opposition to the government...
...But the overriding theme in the decrees is an attempt to rid Chile of the Junta's political opposition--much of which is to be found in the labor movement...
...Moreover, the strike weapon is so weak in most industries that this limited protection from strikebreakers is relatively academic...
...Yet the fact is that the Pinochet government is deeply concerned about foreign impressions regarding Chilean intentions in this field...
...This provides for selection of one party's last offer by the arbitrator...
...Corson and by David Wise and Thomas Ross...
...In summary, the legislation does indeed provide the opportunity for some activity by trade unions which has not been permitted since 1973...
...The difficulty in Chile is that the arbitrators will be named by the state--and for obvious reasons the unions are extremely suspicious of any roster which the state formulates unilaterally...
...But the general tenor of the decrees is to weaken the ability of the unions to function on any basis...
...Childs's work was simply and accurately called "Dance" and included a stunning lighting design in , primary hues by Beverly Emmons, film sequences by artist Sol LeWitt, and a hypnotically repetitive score by Philip Glass...
...More formidable is the on-again, off-again American support for a boycott of Chilean goods and products...
...Although unions may invite outsiders to the negotiating table, collective bargaining at a level higher than the company is not lawful...
...This essential (Continued on page 116) 29 February 1980...
...Coordinated bargaining across company lines is forbidden...
...What must be added is that in Chile workers will be automatically terminated if they do not accept the employer's offer as of the sixty-day period and that previously existing job security rights are abrogated...
...The influence was not in terms of subject matter but in the process, the technique of realizing a painting...
...Childs, with her collaborators, has found subtle complexity in this repetition...
...The theory is that each side will be reasonable because it wants the arbitrator to accept its position--and that therefore the bargaining process will work so well that frequently arbitration will be unnecessary...
...Minister Pifiera notes that in industries where a strike is not lawfully acceptable, "final offer" arbitration--a procedure which is now used in the public sector in much of the United States--is to be utilized...
...This is why the entire Chilean labor movement, including the moderate AFL-CIO-supported Group of Ten, has soundly condemned virtually every aspect of the new laws...
...In the copper industry where strikes have been of substantial duration, labor-management relations are to be handled by special legislation...
...Collectively negotiated agreements can be superseded by an individual contract of employment negotiated between employer and employee...
...We don't have that here...
...I Geneva:based International Labor Organization's continuous concern with Chilean alleged violations of ILO Conventions protecting freedom of association for workers...
...Strikes which would cause "great damage" to the "economy of the country, or national security" are prohibited...
...Nevertheless, Labor Minister Pinera proudly points to aspects of'the new legislation which are similar or superior to (from a union point of view) American law...
...A strike begun late in January by mine and smelter workers paralyzed the El Teniente copper mine that produces one-third of Chile's copper, the country's main export...
...The role of unions in connection with the subject matter of collective bargaining is severely circumscribed...
...or of the assertion that the Kennedys wanted "a...
...CHILE COURTS WORLD OPINION The junta & the trade unions WILLIAM B. GOULD G ENERAL AUGUSTO PINOCHET, leader of Chile's military junta since the overthrow of the Allende Government six years ago, has made clear that there is to be no political process in that country in the foreseeable future...
...Spare, droning, or hypnotic music has been a fact of musical life in non-Western societies for a long time, but only recently has it made a significant appearance in major concert halls as a classical form...
...The problem for the Pinochet government is that the recently enacted legislation can be regarded as equitable and even-handed to labor and capital only from a vantage point which focuses exclusively on the past six years" suppression of trade unions in Chile--i.e., something is better than nothing at all...
...sharp acceleration of covert raids on Cuba" in the early stages of the missile crisis (142...
...or of the story of Harvey's dinner with John Rosselli of the mob in June 1963 (149...
...Combining as it does superficial criticism of the CIA on minor points with reverent acceptance of CIA's self-portrait as a blameless outfit doing bad things only at the order of Presidents, The Man Who Kept the Secrets is a triumph not of dispassionate scholarship but of CIA disinformation...
...There are also an undue number of factual errors, many of them listed by David Wise in his New R-@ublic review (November 3, 1979...
...We do not need the CIA of 1957 in which more than 50 percent of personnel and more than 80 percent of the budget were dedicated to covert action...
...And the vague, open-ended nature of this language will make it possible to prohibit a wide variety of strikes in important sections of the economy...
...as the book itself seems to reflect CIA's own campaign to regain its old autonomy...
...The reason is not simply the WILLIAM B. GOULD teaches labor law at Stanford Law School in California...
...The legislation, contained in a series of decrees promulgated during the month of July, .is a detailed and, at times, a sophisticated effort to emulate the form of modern labor law in the West...
...The 1979 laws provide for multiple unions in one plant--and most Chileans believe that this will divide and thus undermine the union side...
...or of the statement that Hanoi had 40,000 agents in South Vietnam (184...
...But it emasculates the Chilean labor movement...
...On the basis of the above, one might nevertheless conclude that the government genuinely wants to engage in collective bargaining and not politics--and that a trade union movement which is depoliticized is more likely to function in a responsible manner...
...Strikers said they were not only rejecting the copper company's new contract but were protesting the government's labor policies...
...No doubt the inordinately uncritical reception accorded the Powers book reflects a widespread desire to believe that CIA's past excesses were due to the iniquity of Presidents and not to the internal dynamism of over-financed and under-supervised intelligence organizations...
...For instance, the principle of exclusive bargaining status for a union was accepted practice before 1973...
...I share this feeling though the kind of CIA we need, in my view, is an agency effective in intelligence collection and analysis and in counter-espionage rather than in murder and revolution...
...In order to accomplish this, the Chilean government plans a' new and more restrictive role for the trade unions...
...In the latter category, he points out that in the United States, workers engaged in a lawful strike may be replaced by strikebreakers, whereas this summer's decrees contemplate replacement in Chile only sixty days after the strike has commenced...
...So also is collective bargaining cooperation between different unions in different companies...
...Wages and "'other monetary benefits" are the only subjects which are deemed "subject to collective bargaining...
...Its one-sidedness ought to make itsuspect for foreign trade union movements which are attempting to assess the boycott issue and to make policy judgments generally with regard to contemporary Chile...
...Two of the brightest talents in the modern dance word, Lucinda Childs and Meredith Monk, presented separate concerts of their recent work and revealed how much Miss Childs has found minimalism a congenial working format and how indebted Miss Monk is to the collage construction...
...The closest thing to it in the extant repertory was Ravel's Bolero, whic~ also attracted its share of hostile commentary in the beginning...
...You are subjected to the pressure of private groups who have interests in proposed laws...
...Glass's music is insistent, pitched at a high level of aural saturation, and devoid of rapid changes in melodic or rhythmic line...
...Minister Pinera told me that he "didn't care" about that because Chile had not ratified the relevant Conventions in any event...
...The spare modulation Commonweah 116...
...How we get the kind of CIA we need without creating another Frankenstein's monster is not an insoluble problem, but also not one to be solved in this review...
...Accordingly, the new laws are not designed with a view toward obtaining internal acceptability--although the Chilean labor movement stresses that the government's door is always open to business...
...And with regard to a number of fringe benefit items such as vacations and hohdays, the statutes make it appear that unions cannot bargain above the minimum provided for by the legislation...
...This is the wolf at the door which this past summer's decrees are designed to keep away...
...But, as Chile's 30-year-old Harvard educated Minister of Labor, Jose Pinera, said to me in Santiago recently: "We operate in a different environment than you Americans...
...To the American observer, the legislation is a potpourri of anti-union measures which were rejected by the 80th Congress when it enacted the Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act in 1947...
...111 aim is to move the nationwide federations out of collective bargaining...
...The Man Who Kept the Secrets will be less useful to historians than the Agency-approved but intelligent books by Harry Rositzke and Ray Cline or than the more popular accounts by W.R...
...I Dance MINIMALISM & COLLAGE LUCINDA CHILDS & MEREDITH MONK I N THE SIXTIES,contemporary art started to exert a pervasive influence on modern dance which has continued to the present...
...and so on...
...or of Desmond FitzGerald's attempt to give the Russians a supply route to Hanoi in exchange for Soviet attempts to restrain Hanoi (182...
...The hardest hit by this measure is the Farm Workers Union which has depended upon industrywide bargaining ever since that organization was promoted and encouraged by the Frei government in the sixties...
Vol. 107 • February 1980 • No. 4
