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Rationalisation and Working Class Response: the Context and Limits of Factory Floor Activity in Argentina*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Daniel James
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Extract

Elisabeth Jelin, in an important recent work, has criticized the overconcern in studies of the Latin American working class with the structural determinants of class relations and class activity. As she pointed out, this has tended to lead to a deterministic approach on the part of the social sciences, emphasizing the lack of autonomy of the working class in terms of its failure to construct a comprehensive, radical challenge to the dominant system on the political level and its domination by, and acceptance of, demobilizing, bureaucratic leaderships on the trade union level.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 1981 , pp. 375 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 Elisabeth, Jelín, ‘Espontaneidad y Organización en el Movimento Obrero’, Revista Latinoamericana de Sociología (nueva serie) No. 2 (1975). A shorter version also appeared in Sociologie du Travail, No. 2 (1976).Google Scholar

2 Jorge, Katz, Productive Functions, Foreign Investment and Growth (N. Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam),Google Scholar quoted in Mallon, R., Economic Policy Making in a Conflict Society (Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Report of the proceedings of the Congress of Productivity and Social Welfare, Hechos e Ideas (1955), p. 282.Google Scholar

4 Ibid.

5 Report of Commission of Industrial Rationalisation, Proceedings of Congreso General de la Confederación de la Industria (Buenos Aires, 1966), p. 3.Google Scholar

6 Hechos e Ideas, op. cit., p. 279.Google Scholar

7 Richard, Hyman and Ian, Brough, Social Values and Industrial Relations (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1975), p. 12.Google Scholar

8 Hyman and Brough have noted a general tendency for workers to reinterpret the ‘effort bargain’ in favourable circumstances: ‘In a context of relatively full employment and of extensive trade union membership the indeterminacy of work obligations is no longer so evident an advantage to the employer… the growth of collective organization at the work place… permits the situation to be exploited to the benefit of employees.’ Hyman, and Brough, , op. cit., p. 24.Google Scholar

9 In this context it should be noted that absenteeism was a major complaint of the employers, particularly what they called ‘lunes de huelga’, and was used by them to exemplify the problems they were facing in terms of labour discipline within the factories.

10 Mutuality refers to the general principle whereby workers and their immediate representatives can insist on joint consultation with management in determining factors such as time allowed for a job and quality required. Often mutuality arose initially as a management tactic to deal individually with the isolated worker on the shop floor, by-passing the union. However, given strong shop floor organization, it was a device which could be turned to the advantage of the workers. This was certainly the case in many parts of British industry, and, I would suggest, in Argentina during the Peronist period. For the British case, see Friedman, Andrew L., Industry and Labour (Macmillan, London, 1977), p. 219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 For strikes of 1946–8 period, see Doyon, Louise M., Conflitos operarios durante o regime peronista, 1946–55, Estudos CEBRAP, No. 13 (07–09 1975).Google Scholar

12 Proceedings of the Congreso General de la Confindustria, op. cit., p. 4.Google Scholar

13 Hechos e Ideas, op. cit., p. 30.Google Scholar

14 My own information on this issue is derived mainly from the non-Peronist working class press, generally associated with various nco-Trotskyist groups who adopted a sympathetic though critical attitude to Peronism.

15 La Verdad, 5 01 1954.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., 11–24 september 1954. It is interesting to note that this incentive scheme with its division of productive and non-productive workers was a faithful copy of classic Taylorist incentive schemes. Also, it is interesting to note the divisive effects such schemes could have on work force unity. SIAM, in fact, in their battle to get ‘productive’ workers to accept the lowering of time rates, promised the ‘unproductives’ a wage increase if those working in the incentive scheme accepted the new rates.

17 La Verdad, 11–24 09 1954.Google Scholar It should be emphasized that we lack adequate description of the nature and extent of different work and payment systems in Argentine industry during the Peronist period. My own feeling is that those incentive schemes which did exist were essentially what Friedman calls ‘money piece work’, i.e., where workers are paid at a price per piece produced. Management's basic concern was to transform these into more ‘rational’ systems of ‘time piece work’ where workers are paid a bonus in relation to the time saved against the time allowed for a job. As Friedman notes, the latter system involves far greater direct control by management of the labour process. See Friedman, , op. cit., p. 219.Google Scholar

18 Hyman, and Brough, , op. cit., p. 219.Google Scholar Gouldner's classic analysis of the origins of an unofficial strike is also relevant. He showed that the crucial issue was management's withdrawal of a traditionally ‘indulgent’ definition of work intensity which workers had come to regard as the legitimate definition of the ‘effort bargain’. See Alvin, Gouldner, Wildcat Strike (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1955).Google Scholar The widespread working-class opposition to the scientific management movement in various countries is, of course, also relevant here. For an analysis of such opposition in the United States, see David, Montgomery, ‘Quel standards? Les ouvriers ct la réorganisation de la production aux Etats Unis, 1900–1920’, La Mouvetnent Social, No. 102 (01–03 1978). Of course, generally speaking, skilled workers were the most effected by the rationalization drives and were the spearhead of working-class resistance to Taylorism. I have no concrete information on this aspect although my impression is that the issue of craft working was less important in Argentina. Certainly I did not encounter explicit opinion on this issue. Also one should remember, as Montgomery notes, that in the classic period of struggle against Taylorism the working-class definition of legitimate work practices and work intensity was a general ethic shared by many sectors of the working class, not just craftsmen.Google Scholar

19 The two most comprehensive studies of the relationship between labour and the Peronist government are Walter, Little, ‘Political Integration in Peronist Argentina’ (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1971) and Louise M. Doyon, op. cit. Neither mentions this issue in connection with the 1954 metalworkers’ strike.Google Scholar

20 Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión, Registro General de Coavenios Colectivos y Laudos, Acta 12 (Buenos Aires, 06 1954).Google Scholar

21 It is possible that other of the major strikes in the first half of 1954 also involved this issue. Doyon, , op. cit., mentions that work to rule became the most common means of labour protest in 1954, there being an enormous increase in the number of workers involved in such actions. Again, she relates this to the wages issue though, following the logic of the argument I am presenting here, it would also represent the refusal of workers to cooperate in the employers’ productivity plans.Google Scholar

22 See Louise M. Doyon, op. cit.

23 Hechos c Ideas, op. cit., p. 32.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., p. 17.

25 Ibid., p. 27.

26 Ibid., p. 275.

27 This conflict of criteria between workers and employers concerning productivity is inherent in any labour process in a class divided society. As André Gorz has noted: ‘From the point of view of the worker the productivity of labour only increases when it can produce more without increasing fatigue, from the point of view of capital the productivity of labour increases every time that it can impose on the worker an increase in the expenditure of labour power without a proportional increase in salary.’ Gorz goes on to specify that ‘only the first definition is rigorous; it measures an increase of output without corresponding increase of input, therefore it is a “technical progress”. On the other hand the second definition is manifestly false since it considers only an increase in output without taking into account an increase in input, to the extent that this input is human energy.’ See André, Gorz, ‘Technique, techniciens et lutte de classes’, Les Temps Modernes, 08-09, 1971.Google Scholar

28 Much less was the opposition directed against the regime itself. As Doyon points out with relation to the strikes of 1954: ‘…they did not represent a definitive rupture between the regime and the workers’ movement because the majority of workers chose very moderate channels to show their dissatisfaction and did not direct their protest against the government.’ See Doyon, , op. cit.Google Scholar

29 For an analysis of such demands in the US, see David, Montgomery, ‘The Past and Future of Workers' Control’, Radical America, Vol. 13, No. 6 (11–12, 1979).Google Scholar

30 Hyman and Brough quote Baldamus who notes in this respect that workers are generally socialized into accepting a notion of work obligations but that ‘however powerful their content is too diffuse to control behaviour effectively in any concrete situation. Such notions of obligation support the institution of capitalist employment but do not control the specific activities within the institution’. See Hyman, and Brough, , op. cit., p. 17.Google Scholar

31 Hechos e Ideas, op. cit., p. 281.Google Scholar

32 See Doyon, , op. cit. She mentions that the issue of enforcing employer compliance with such regulations was an important element in the strikes of 1946–1948.Google Scholar

33 Hechos e Ideas, op. cit., p. 280.Google Scholar

34 La Verdad, 9 04, 1955.Google Scholar

35 Proceedings of Congreso General de la Confindustria, op. cit., p. 250.Google Scholar

36 The reluctance of the CGT leadership to acquiesce wholeheartedly in the employers' rationalization plans can be seen partly as a reflection of their awareness of the strength of feeling amongst their membership on this issue. This, of course, implies a more complex picture of the Peronist trade union leadership in this period and its relationship its members and the state than is usually found in the literature. Louise M. Doyon, op. cit., provides a convincing analysis in this direction: ‘While it is certain that the workers’ leaders were fully aware that they could not keep their positions without the regime's consent they were equally aware that they could not survive as leaders of their unions without, at the minimum, the tacit acquiescence of the mass of their members.’ Indeed, the metalworkers' strike of 1954 was a clear indication of the dangers for both the regime and union leadership of a leadership which had lost its standing with its membership.

37 La Nación, 1 04, 1955.Google Scholar

38 This is not, of course, a phenomenon peculiar to Peronism. Hyman and Brough provide a general analysis of the ambiguous role of such values in capitalism and the general problems of ideological legitimation relative to the structure of power in capitalist industry. Hyman, and Brough, , op. cit., p. 210.Google Scholar

39 Juan Carlos Torre has argued that this ambiguity with relation to the productivity campaign was one of the factors contributing to the September 1955 coup against Peronism. See Juan, Carlos Torre, ‘The Meaning of Current Workers’ Struggles', Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1974).Google Scholar

40 La Nacion, 20 02, 1956.Google Scholar

41 For a detailed analysis of this process, see Daniel, James, ‘Unions and Politics: the development of Peronist trade unionism, 1955–66’ (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1979). Especially Ch. 3.Google Scholar

42 Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión;Nuevo Regimen de Remuneraciones y de las Convenciones Colectivas de Trabajo (Buenos Aires, 1956).Google Scholar

43 Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión Social, Laudo del Tribunal Arbitral, No. 63/1956, (Buenos Aires, 1956).Google Scholar

44 See Daniel, James, op. cit., for analysis of the Resistance.Google Scholar

45 It would seem probable that the urgency of the matter was increased by the crucial role of foreign capital in desarrollista economic projects. A precondition for the attraction of foreign capital was the establishment of a ‘reasonable’ balance of power on the factory floor.

46 See Daniel James, op. cit., for an analysis of this process, especially Ch. 4.

47 Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social, Convención Colectiva de Trabajo, No. 155/60 (Buenos Aires, 1960).Google Scholar

48 Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social, Conuención Colectiva de Trabajo, No. 55/60 (Buenos Aires, 1960).Google Scholar

49 Documentación y Información Laboral, No. 1, 03 10 1960.Google Scholar

50 Convención Colectiva de Trabajo, No. 41/64, op. cit.

51 Convención Colectiva de Trabajo, No. 155/60, op. cit.

52 This was the case not only in the new dynamic sectors. The most modern sectors within traditional areas of manufacturing also adopted this tactic. Thus many of the major companies in the Textile industry, such as Alpargatas and Ducilo, signed individual company contracts with the union from 1960 on.

53 While we lack detailed figures as to the precise extent of the internal commissions within Argentine industry, it is clear that they were a widespread phenomenon, particularly in traditional manufacturing industries with a high rate of unionization. Elections were, theoretically, open to all union members and candidates were usually grouped in rival ‘lists’ representing the different tendencies into which the Argentine union movement was divided at a national level. Thus, a typical contest in the 1960s would see a list supported by the national Peronist leadership, a rival dissident Peronist list and perhaps one supported by Communists. The list which won the majority of shop delegates and therefore controlled the ‘cuerpo de delegados’ for the factory as a whole went on to control the ‘comisión interna de reclamos’ - the internal commission. Although it is clear that shop floor elections were by no means immune to the sort of undemocratic practices often associated with national union elections in Argentina, it would seem reasonable to maintain that membership participation in these elections was generally considerably greater than in the national union elections.

54 Speech of Galileo Puente to the Círculo Argentino de Estudios sobre Organización Industrial, included in Documentos del Plenario Nacional de las 62 Organizaciones, 20 05, 1960, Buenos Aires, in mimeo.Google Scholar

55 Palabra Obrera, 22 10, 1959.Google Scholar

56 Of course, it could well be that, given certain circumstances, it would be in management's interests to resolve grievances directly at the point of production. This would be particularly the case where there was only weak shop floor organization. Conversely, grievance procedure could be used by workers as a protection against management.

57 It may be argued, too, that the very nature of the collective bargaining system in Argentina - particularly its highly centralized, national emphasis - compounded this situation.

58 See Tony, Cliff, The Employers' Offensive (Pluto Press, London, 1970).Google Scholar

59 See Huw, Beynon, Working for Ford (Penguin, London, 1973).Google Scholar

60 Juan Carlos Torre, op. cit.