The Roots of Mobilization: Workplace and Social Conflict in Argentina in an Historical Perspective

This chapter presents an historical background for the analysis of mobilization. Consequently, attention is drawn to those aspects of Argentine social history and trade unionism that could help to explain the cases of mobilization in this research. Can we identify recurring trends and how do these influence our interpretation of events? The analysis, starting from the data collected during the fieldwork, looks, in particular, at those historical or contextual factors that the workers interviewed have indicated in the interviews as being main obstacles in the process of mobilization and/or in the radicalization of it. Three thematic and recurrent issues have been identified: military repression and its effects on worker mobilization, the workers’ attitude toward trade unionism and the socio-political context at the time of mobilization. In line with this the chapter has been organized into three main sections. The first reconsiders how the use of repressive practices, adopted systematically by military governments in Argentina until 1983, affected workers’ potential for mobilization. Although these practices have clearly produced a loss in terms of organizational structure, increased by the large-scale assassination of delegates and activists as under the last military dictatorship, workers have nonetheless mobilized, often in spontaneous, unorganized ways.