Torre 1998

Juan Carlos Torre 1998 "The Amibivalent Giant: The Peronist Labor Movement, 1945-1995" 125-137

in

Brennan, James P., Peronism and Argentina. Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 1998.

• from 1955 to 1973 the peronist working class was in a curious position. "on the one hand, the unions needed to represent the workers in collective bargaining negotiations and service their needs--through social welfare programs, retirement plans, and vacation colonies--in a country in which the state had abandoned any pretensions to such concerns. On the other hand, organized labor was effectively the political representative of the Peronist movement in these years, with Perón as its recognized leader. So the working class played a rather conventional role in the country's economy, as well as socially, but an adversarial, destabilizing role within the political system." (130)
• after the Resistance subsided uniosn became pragmatic, but co-optation by the state and acceptance as an independent actor were prevented by the political dimension of peronism (131)
• "If the Radical government was a godsend for perpetuating these patterns of behavior, the election of a Peronist government in 1989 and its recent reelection in 1995 may well constitue a fatal misfortune. As in 1973-1976 the Peronist trade union leadership has been forced to accept policies, in teh name of solidarity with a Peronist government, that threaten their very existence." (134)
• "The decline in the unions' importance in the country's economic structure has had its counterpart in new developments in the political realm. Since the restoration of democracy, the Peronist trade union leaders have experienced repeated reversals in their pretensions of influencing developments within the Peronist movement as a whole." (135)
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