Labor in Latin America
Alba, Victor
There is much talk these days about the Latin American middle class, about students, intellectuals and oligarchs. But, except when there are strikes, little talk about the industrial...
...Such is the reality, and any program of workers' education must take this into account...
...In Peru also, anarchists were the initiators of the labor movement, taking leadership of the Confederation of Artisans ("Universal Union") which existed since 1884...
...Exclusively trade-union elements left this in 1902 to found the General Workers' Union (UGT...
...But in 1891 an oligarchical rebellion ended Balmaceda's regime and he committed suicide...
...in Guatemala two movements merged to form the Workers' Federation for Labor Protection...
...Even without a conscious realization of this, the unions have often sided with the feudal oligarchy against the peasantry or have become the latter's accomplice through indifference toward the peasants...
...Exploitation is so blatant that any theoretical explanation is useless...
...The outcome of these struggles depends more upon the leaders' personal popularity than upon their ideological views...
...The first strikes in the country were by the salitreros of Tarpaca in 1890 who wanted to be paid in cash, not in company-store vouchers...
...Thus, to a degree, the working class becomes a parasitic class living off the peasantry...
...a) A considerable percentage of illiterate workers and, perhaps still worse, a great number of People whose formal education does not go beyond knowledge of the ABC's, who have no interest whatever in any cultural activity, and who are impervious to and suspicious of complicated explanations...
...Under Castro it is used to raise productivity and control the workers...
...As for Chile, thanks to foreign loans it was one of the first Latin American countries to become industrialized...
...In Argentina, Esteban Echevarria, founded the Association of May in 1838 and wrote the Socialist Dogma...
...But even then 392 it is only a platonic position which leaves to the popular and middle-class movements the brunt of the struggle against the latafundists...
...It seems clear that the Latin American "revolution" about which everyone talks is nothing but a typical bourgeois revolution...
...Thanks to mutual-help organizations which it had created at the start, FOCH was able to sustain prolonged strikes such as the 1921 coal strike which lasted two months and which won an 8-hour day in the coal pits...
...Two poets in Mexico, Pantaleon Tovar and Juan Diaz Covarrubias, propagated utopianism, while in Brazil a Frenchman, Taudonnet, began to publish the Socialist Review in 1845...
...In many areas workers abandon their work during protracted village festivals and at harvest time...
...Chile today is still the country with the most highly developed cooperative movement...
...It is only recently that in a few countries — Peru, Venezuela — the unions have shown an active interest in the agrarian question...
...Costa Rican unions were unified only in 1943...
...g) General lack of interest in social problems and the absence of documentation (magazines, libraries, books, lectures, workers' study circles, etc...
...The cultural and technical level of the Latin American trade-union leadership is generally rather low...
...II Basic needs in Latin America are so pressing that there is neither time nor possibility for disguising them in idealism...
...In recent years, as a result of industrialization, it has increased in size, but its consciousness remains undeveloped and non-politi...
...CORA and FORA merged in 1914, but split a year later...
...Very likely the major task of the unions at present is to win the right to actively participate in the economic planning about which everyone now talks and which the United States has finally come to accept...
...Within all these movements a very active struggle between democratic and Communist tendencies goes on...
...One out of 233 among Mexican women as compared with one out of 153 in the professions and with one out of 213 among university students...
...Hence, its weakness in theory...
...British capital, followed by North American investments, built the railroads and worked the nitrate and copper mines in the inhospitable Northern regions...
...The landed oligarchy was forced to permit universal suffrage in 1874, without any condition but literacy...
...It also abolished night work for women and children, made health insurance obligatory and set minimum wages...
...But at present it may be said that the destiny of Latin America is taking shape without the decisive intervention of the industrial working class...
...The nitrate region of Antofogasta, first exploited by combined AngloChilean investments in 1866, saw thousands of peasants become miners...
...The mass of workers affiliated in the north rapidly gained control and weakened the influence of the anarchist unions affiliated with the IWW...
...b) The peasant origin of the huge majority of industrial workers...
...It creates castes of better educated workers, it establishes a hierarchy of wages and weakens trade-union solidarity...
...FORA remained independent...
...In 1902, 1904 and 1905 there were three general strikes, and in 1910 the Argentine Regional Workers' Confederation (CORA) was established...
...This low educational level helps stir up differences within the working class...
...Growth of Latin America's economy and politics requires that the unions participate...
...b) The period between the two world wars...
...That is why Argentina, with its mass immigration, experienced working-class struggles first...
...As early as 1900 there were 240 cooperatives...
...It has almost never collaborated with peasant organizations in the few countries where they exist...
...Several major conclusions may be drawn from this sketch of the Latin American labor movement...
...In a period of economic crisis or unemployment, they return to their villages where they are at least assured of food and shelter...
...Latin American labor needs to reform itself, needs to fall into step with the evolution of Latin America and make a reality out of the workers' movement's old slogan: to make itself the representative of all of society's interests precisely because it represents the interests of the workers...
...In spite of a law permitting the expulsion of emigre agitators, the unions were very active...
...In 1812, the Negro Juan Aponte led a slave uprising of 20,000 with the aim of establishing a Black Republic...
...The result of this isolation and bureaucratism is the indifference of the unions toward important national questions...
...After independence from Spain, unions were rapidly formed and in 1925 joined together in a national Confederation which was successively dominated by the Communists and by democrats, then subjected to Batista from 1952 to 1959...
...The CGT came much later and was dissolved, together with the "Universal Union," by the 1930 military dictatorship, at the moment when the APRA movement, founded in 1924 by Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, began to develop...
...The railroad workers' union split away from it and a number of other unions followed...
...d) The Latin American worker is in a transitional stage between artisanship (work performed in small workshops) and rationalized assembly-line work...
...They rarely take part in the anti-imperialists' struggles except when these are conflicts with foreign enterprises (the most important being those in the Colombian banana plantations in Santa Marta in 1929, the Chilean mine strikes and, in 1938, Mexican oil...
...The Communists often succeed in making use of the working class, but have failed to obtain appreciable results in recruiting...
...Educating these workers becomes a problem as does training them to fill skilled and specialized jobs...
...This isolation sometimes takes on a politically reactionary character...
...c) Persistence of an isolated, peas 388 ant mentality in the city worker...
...It is satisfied to fight for wages and working conditions...
...Only recently have any attempts been made to give the labor movement a voice of its own...
...In 1921 the Federation constituted itself along industrial council lines, abandoning organization according to profession...
...In 1892 a Regional Workers Congress met to demand the 8-hour day...
...But, except when there are strikes, little talk about the industrial working class...
...In Uruguay and Paraguay similar movements developed...
...He is often mistrustful, uninterested in social problems, and indifferent toward culture...
...At present, Communism influences primarily intellectuals, students and the middle class...
...There is even the example of the "Red Battalions" formed by Mexican workers during the 1910-1917 Revolution which helped the city forces crush the insurrectionary peasantry...
...In Colombia the first socialist clubs were organized...
...The unions have neither a program nor a viewpoint to help in the solution of this problem despite its considerable importance for the labor movement, one reason being that Indians are easily mobilized as strikebreakers...
...By contrast, labor struggles in Cuba early acquired importance...
...We would find no doubt that alcoholism, use of harmful herbs, emotional and family instability stem largely from the peasant's failure to adapt to urban life...
...A majority of the labor movement is led at present by elements of the popular and revolutionary democratic parties (Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Costa Rica), by a Socialist-Communist alliance (Chile and a section in Ecuador), by a Peronist-Communist alliance (Argentina), and by leaders who are to all intents state functionaries (Brazil...
...Although on several occasions the unions have attempted to organize peasants, they have rarely succeeded...
...This organization disappeared in 1896, weakened by a conflict between authoritarian and anti-authoritarian elements...
...that is, to prevent overexploitation of labor according to the Soviet model...
...This organization and the FOL (Local Workers' Federation—an anarchosyndicalist movement) often form united fronts...
...After 1923 political events forced the FOCH into a crisis...
...f) The great number of children who work before reaching the legal age at which they are permitted to...
...In 1910, out of 3,200,000 inhabitants listed by census, 55,000 were affiliated to 433 groups...
...Except for Chile, the once powerful socialist and anarchist influence has vanished...
...Since industrialization takes place almost everywhere without any prior or parallel agrarian reform, it is the peasants who must pay for it...
...The work day then lasted 16 hours...
...This disproportion also leads to friction in work and home and frequently provokes union injustices...
...In Central America the labor move ment came late and has little influ...
...In Chile, in 1850, Francisco Bilbao created the "Society of Equals...
...Toward the middle of the 19th century a few dreamers imported European socialist utopias...
...Their members exer cised influence in various trades so as to found the General Workers' Union of Argentina on May first, 1890...
...In 1901 the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (FORA) was organized...
...The industrial workers must cope as best they can with a multitude of complex problems stemming from industrialization, rapid urbanization and the prospect of automation...
...or, as in Brazil, from anarchist groups...
...tion of the working day accomplished by strike action...
...cal...
...Nevertheless, it is the middle-class parties that spell out the orientation, study the problems, and propose the solutions...
...The solidarity which grew up among them was such as one rarely sees on the continent...
...It seems also clear that the weak and politically inexperienced Latin American proletariat, lacking any doctrine, can play only a subordinate and secondary role in this revolution...
...In 1924 a military government was established which decreed, for demagogic reasons, a Labor Code giving legal recognition to the unions and to joint industrial committees...
...the Guatemalan Confederation of Workers was created in 1944...
...In 1925, Arturo Apessandri issued a constitution recognizing the right of union organization and setting a 48-hour week...
...Limits to exploitation can be established to prevent the repetition in Latin America of the worst characteristics of industrialization in Europe and the United States...
...in virtually all of Latin America...
...hence there is a constant fluctuation of manpower, as well as of union strength...
...But if it cannot lead the revolution, it does have sufficient weight to limit to some extent the freedom of movement of the bourgeoisie which itself is still in process of forma tion...
...ence...
...There are some 15 to 20 million industrial workers in Latin America and labor unions exist in every country, even under the dictatorships...
...While the European labor movement, particularly at the beginning, was preoccupied with the future, the labor movement in the New World concentrated exclusively on the improvement of existing conditions without bothering about tomorrow...
...By the First World War the normal work day was ten hours (16 hours, however, for commercial employees), and wages kept up with price increases...
...To prepare leaders, to renew the union teams by infusions of young blood, to attract intellectuals, students, technicians and especially young workers into the unions, to support the organizing of peasants and to help Indian groups become modern without losing their identity are among the many phases of union activity which still remain unexplored...
...A special study alone would be required to explain the influence this has on the psychology of the Mexican worker in his work and in his union, as well as his attitude toward his children, home, and pleasures...
...Several sections—French, German, Spanish and Italian—of the First International were established at Buenos Aires...
...The labor movement as such rarely voices an opinion on these general questions...
...This development took place more rapidly when it received the help of European immigrants already familiar with trade unionism...
...c) The post-war period: The unions become completely unpolitical in their activities, while splitting into anti- and pro-Communist groupings...
...Then, in 1929, after vain efforts to unify the unions, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) was started...
...Until 1936, when the Chilean Workers' Confederation (CTCH) was established, FOCH led a rather monotonous existence...
...In the second place, the labor movement has lived in a state of isolation from other social forces...
...The Union Grafica (Printers' Union) won a ten-hour work day for newspaper shops in 1878, the first limita...
...To understand this we must briefly examine the character of the Latin American working class and the history of its labor movement...
...Jose Maria Balmaceda, president of the Republic, refused to act against the strikers and went so far as to suggest nationalizing the mines as well as the railroads...
...By 1918 FORA had 70,000 members and UGT had 80,000...
...in 1813 the vegueros refused to plant tobacco unless their wages were increased...
...In 1912 the FOI (International Workers' Federation), changed to the FOT (Workers' Labor Federation) after 1918, was set up...
...Not only a lack of interest in the agrarian and Indian problems, but no participation in planning where it exists, no struggle against dictatorships with the exception of some groups in Venezuela and Peru, no support to cultural activities, no help in the forming of workers or popular universities despite the fact that forty years ago such schools were common in Latin America and, particularly those under anarcho-syndicalist leadership tied to the labor movement...
...III There are three different stages in the development of the Latin American labor movement: a) The period of origiis: Anarchists or socialists create unions, they have a life of their own, import European ideas and, without becoming political, take part in national problems...
...independent unions conducted the principal struggles...
...This creates problems of psychological adaptation which are reflected in his attitnde toward his union...
...It was the socialist emigres who, after the Paris Commune, led the way to coordination of the until then scat tered unions...
...Finally, such isolation creates very marked tendencies in the labor movement toward bureaucratization, the perpetuation of "leaders" in their posts, a fiction of democracy at meetings...
...This has not always been the situation and it probably will not remain so in the future...
...Trade-union cooperatives, certain of which lend economic support to strikes, have developed on a wide scale...
...Nine years later the railwaymen went on strike to protest a foreman's mistreatment of one of their men...
...In 1922 Ecuador had its first union...
...Bolivia's first trade union made its appearance in 1906 and was called the Workers' Social Center...
...There is much talk these days about the Latin American middle class, about students, intellectuals and oligarchs...
...The workers are satisfied to fight for immediate aims...
...It is only lately that the unions, almost without exception, have taken a stand in favor of land reform...
...In Chile, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, the ChristianDemocrats have begun to gain a measure of influence...
...As in the other countries, the central trade unions changed according to changes in the working-class ideologies and as the Communists formed their party— here by splitting with the socialists...
...The old guild corporations of the colonial period disappeared or adopted a trade-union form...
...The union instituted several agrarian communities for artisans...
...Latin American labor legislation is, generally, advanced (and as often as not, not carried out...
...First, the Latin American proletariat is numerically weak...
...In 1831, the copper mine workers rebelled and, in 1868, during the first war of independence, a group of Spanish anarchists founded the Society of Tobacco Workers...
...The working class developed rapidly, migration from the country into the cities was constant, contributing to the creation of a more democratic regime...
...Suffice it to recall that the Cuban unions did not par ticipate in the anti-Batista struggle...
...A withdrawal from active politics, but the unions become a battleground for Communists, socialists and anarchists...
...Their interests as workers force them to consider such problems as agrarian reform, inflation and the planning of economic development...
...This model, moreover, has a greater attraction for the bourgeoisie and the young military men and technicians than for the working class which mistrusts the Communists...
...Starting in 1905, the anarchist movement organized the first groups and so energetic was their action that by 1907 a law establishing Sunday rest was promulgated...
...The same indifference is found with respect to the problem of the Indians...
...The first union in Latin America was created in Buenos Aires in 1853...
...Translated by STANLEY PLASTRIK...
...Particularly, the labor movement ought by its action to prevent the bourgeoisie and the forces that support it (the technicians and the younger army people who possess a rather developed sense of efficiency) from attempting to force the nation's development by non-democratic means...
...IV Despite these shortcomings, the labor movement has a part to play in Latin American life...
...Communist influence has always been slight, although during certain periods such as the Popular Front days and after the Second World War, Communists directed the central unions of a majority of Latin American countries...
...A year later a large number of them had formed the Greater Workers' Federation of Chile (FOCH...
...e) Women scarcely take part in industry...
Vol. 9 • September 1962 • No. 4
