Cató and Ventrici 2011

Cató, Juan, and Patricia Ventrici. 2011. "Labor Union Renewal in Argentina: Democratic Revitalization from the Base". Latin American Perspectives. 38 (6): 38-51. 

• Introduction
• 2001 crisis involved the collapse of the development formula based on financial accumulation, exhaustion of social model based on exclusion and regressive distribution of income, and delegitimization of political authority (38)
• the persecution of labor leaders during the dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s, coupled with the cooptation of union leaders in the 1990s, significantly weakened labor as a social actor (38-39) 
• BUT the new landscape created by Néstor Kirchner provided a favorable climate for labor union revitalization through union democracy (39)
• look at subway workers to see how rank and file changed their internal procedures, became more democratic, and how the union fared after making these changes
• The Union legacy of the 1990s and the New Situation
• the (neoliberal) changes to the labor market and the deterioration of the norms of protection delegitimized many unions in the 1990s (Marshall and Perelman 2002) (40)
• many unions privileged organizational survival over rank and file interests
• Union Democracy
• paper looks at the ways labor unions as a social actor deal with workers' needs (41)
• the major unions, since 2003, have continued the old model of deeply rooted bureaucracy and top-down control (42)
• the struggle by many leaders to preserve their power closes off the possibility of revitalization
• but the weakening of corporatism also brought the old model of unionism into crisis (citing de la Garza 2008)
• in Argentina unionism is on the defensive, and any attempt and innovation is perceived as a threat to leaders...questioning leaders is seen as a declaration of rivalry (43)
• Resistance to Union Bureaucratization:  The Subway Assembly Delegates
• the new, post-2001 era made possible the emergence and/or consolidation of union renewal from the base
• the Subway union went against the grain of history, as it was
• challenged entrenched union bureaucracy (44)
• was innovative and employed a lot of direct action
• was particularly success in achieving its demands
• Boundary-violating actions by the base revealed the limits of the established rules, and allowed rank and file to supersede them
• 1994: subway privatized
• the union outwardly complained, but internally decided to moderate demands, work with management, limit workers in transition
• unhappy workers started meeting and complaining clandestinely
• in 1997 a worker was unfairly fired and other workers left on an unauthorized strike (45), though most delegates and leadership did not aid them
• after this these militant workers attempted to gain elected positions in the union Assembly as delegates
• in 2000 the militant delegates won 17 of 21 seats
• then, in 2001, after an unpopular management decision supported by the union leadership, and demanded to negotiate this decision
• management found that the Assembly, not the leadership, was the real power, and bypassed negotiating with the leadership in this case (45-46)
• the main challenge for the Assembly was to keep workers invovled and reelecting them (46)
• soon the Assembly had taken over long- and medium-term strategy for the union, and became the main interlocutor with management
• both management (using cooptation) and the official union leadership (using non-recognition) tried to break up the Assembly
•  Assembly's main demands were not on wages, but on improving conditions, lowering hours, including more non-organized workers in contracts, and reducing arbitrary management decisions (47)
• my take:  sounds a lot like job control unionism!
• the Assembly consolidated itself both practically and symbolically, and continued to make gains (47-48)
• Conclusion
• In this case, union democracy was not an obstacle but a prerequisite for increased union power (48)
• the Assembly engaged members in active participation and direct action, which showed them that the traditional institutional limits could be overcome and innovation could occur (49)