Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
particularly to the criollo laborers in the sugar industry of Tucumán
province. Communist-led unions accounted for more than 90 percent
of new members. Their unions thus received the unfavorable attention
of the police, who harassed labor activists, prohibited union meetings,
and arrested striking workers. Communist inroads in the labor move-
ment concerned the new military junta.
The Seventeenth of October
The 1943 military coup initially may have been responding to the
growing inflexibility and lack of consensus within the ruling classes,
but it ended up profoundly transforming labor's relationship with the
state. The military's intervention generated working-class expecta-
tions for social reform as well as general anxieties over the neofascist
leanings of some of its leaders. Colonel Juan Domingo Perón as labor
minister encapsulated both qualities.
During hundreds of meetings with union delegations, visits to
factories, and tours of working-class neighborhoods, Colonel Perón
addressed the issues confronted by workers on a daily basis. That
he often did so in a language particular to Argentina's lower classes
enhanced his popular appeal. Recognizing the potential political
strength of the working class, Perón used his official position to
mediate a growing number of labor conflicts. The Labor Department
enforced existing labor legislation and negotiated collective agreements
that raised wage scales and improved working conditions. To soften the
effects of wartime inflation, the state lowered fares on public transport,
froze rents, and set controls on food prices. These reforms quickly
garnered the allegiance of most rank-and-file laborers, but many union
leaders were suspicious of Perón's larger designs.
The motive behind Perón's concessions to worker demands was to
undermine labor's capacity to act autonomously. Colonel Perón as labor
minister sought to organize workers into state-controlled unions and to
eliminate antimilitarist dissent from the labor movement. The military
government escalated the repression of Communist Party members
and other labor leaders who refused to collaborate with Colonel Perón.
New unions emerged, and established ones were reorganized under the
leadership of Peronist sympathizers. Most important, however, Perón's
ability to identify himself with working-class aspirations earned him
the loyalty of the blue-collar workers.
As soon as Colonel Perón assumed leadership of the Labor
Department, he chose the railway unions as the main beneficiaries
