Dinerstein 2010

Dinerstein, Ana Cecilia. 2010. "Autonomy in Latin America: between resistance and integration. Echoes from the Piqueteros experience". Community Development Journal. 45 (3): 356-366.

• Intro:
• new social movements have been reluctant to allow traditional left ideologies to frame their movements
• there is a contradiction in the way movemetns are depicted, either they are
• basis of wider collective action, changing the world without taking power (Holloway 2002), or
• dismissed as contributing to the problem of the World Banks efforts to reduce the role of the state and re-frame social policies in neoliberal terms (357)
• Argument: this is a false dilemma: autonomy from state, market is contested
• focus: how unemployed in Argentina navigated the tension between resistance and integration (357-358)
• focus is on Unemployed Workers' Unions (UTD)
• they maintain autonomy and independence from all political and labor organizations (358)
• created by a group of highly skilled ex-YPF workers
• had become a quasi-city council
• funded by money from state programs, by fighting for re-appropriation of these monies from the state, by mobilizing and receiving social spending (359)
• roadblocks
• State has tried to depoliticize the UTD and other organizations
• early on repression of roadblocks, now simply consistence harassment by the police against the UTD (360)
• government trying to force UTD to become an NGO
• UTD has become the bargainer for workers employed under social programs (361)
• UTD's strategy avoids identification with political power, but gets the state to comply through resistance
• importantly: has no connections to parties or labor unions
• creating new forms of solidarity among the unemployd (362)
• fights back against paternalism
• Downsides:
• women are the majority of members, but aren't in leadership
• has some personalism in leadership
• UTD is in danger of simply replacing politicians as head of client-patron relationship (363)
• also these groups have had trouble moving beyond their local context
• Conclusion
• important difference between accepting the state's invitation tto join social policies and inviting the state to accept their demands for social policy