Tokman 2007

Tokman, Víctor E. 2007. "The informal economy, insecurity and social cohesion in Latin America". International Labour Review. 146 (1-2): 81-107.

•  Social cohesion comes when a country has achieved economic progress and redistributed the fruits of that growth to the whole of society (81)
• social cohesion helps ensure fairer development and involve all the population in efforts to achieve that growth
• social protection is still limited in LA
• social cohesion provides the causal link between mechanisms of integration and well-being and individuals feeling of belonging to society (82)
• this articles measures this by looking at labor marker participation, social protection and public perception of the effectiveness of instruments about these two issues
• Open markets and their effect
• open markets have meant employment is more closely linked to external demand
• this means the possibilities for increasing wages above productivity or expanding internal demand is limited
• instability is high and particularly affects smaller countries with more open economies, which in turn usually have inadequate instruments to deal with this instability
• informality and precariousness grew. even when poverty retreated, high-income groups shifted some of the adjustment costs to the middle-income groups. Thus, inequality did not diminish and wide income disparities grew (83)
• Employment tenure
• decline in employment tenure and high labor turnover
• but the time spent unemployed tended to be shorter
• but people worried about being unemployed: 75% worried about it, while only 59% of households experienced some unemployment  during the previsous year (citing Latinobarometer from 2005)
• only 18% felt protected by labor legislation
• the informal economy
• insecurity affects the whole population, but it tends to affect the socially excluded even more (84)
• informal sector became the informal economy
• precarious work was mostly concentrated in the informal sector, but was increasingly seen in formal-sector enterprises (85)
• only Chile, Argentina, Brazil and El Salvador have seen a decrease in informal-sector activities in the past 15 years (no citation for this, seems to get it from ECLAC) (86)
• the larger the informal sector, the larger public perception of insecurity...more unequal countries also have a larger informal sector (87)
• labor market participation determines eligibility for social security which determines cohesion, and obviously informal sector workers don't participate in labor market (89)
• Strategies favoring social cohesion
• workers in informal sector are often workers and entrepreneurs (92)
• they are socially excluded by low incomes, lack of social protections, and employment isntability
• they are integrated into the labor market but on a precarious basis
• need to extend social protections in order to make people feel like they belong (92-93)
• entry into the formal sector opens the door to social and economic citizenship which, in turn, is a prerequisite for belonging and integration (93)
• issues of micro-enterprises being able to absorb the costs associated with formal employment (95)
• perhaps create a dual system, one for small biz and one for big ones
• "fundamental rights are inalienable even if the necessary compliance involves some job losses" (96)
• Three strategies to address social tension (105)
• incorporate the informal sector into the modern sector
• fix problems with "disguised" employment and/or emloyment not initially included under labor legislation (105-106)
• do flexicurity (106)

my take: this dude is from Europe, and wants the rest of the world to look like Europe

Benclowicz 2011

Benclowicz, José. 2011. "Continuities, Scope, and Limitations of the Argentine Piquetero Movement". Latin American Perspectives. 38 (1): 74-87.

• Introduction
• looking at Tartagal and Mosconi in Salta province (74)
• piquetero movement became the reference point for the area's working class, even displacing official unions
• Piquetes, workers, and the unemployed
• despite the fact that piqeuteros came fro many different classes, the term became closely identified with the unemployed movements (76)
• Three types of groups
• autonomous groups such as the UTD
• those connected with left-wing parties, such as the CTD, and MTL
• those linked to unions, like the FTV
• but also interlocking groups
• CCC is a workers and unemployed group with ties to communist party
• Leaders and Followers
• UTD (Mosconi)
• started in 1996 by an ex-YPF union militant (77)
• started presenting its own initiatives to the municipal government, and took controla of social assistance programs after a big roadblock in 1999
• questioned for allowing one of its memebrs to be part of governmet (78)
• CTD (Tartagal) created and led by a Polo Obrero leader (77)
• gained control of planes trabajar in 2000 (78)
•  this created distance between leaders and rank and file
• Simliarities
• leaders were usually ex state employees with union experience
• grassroots components were usually unemployed without much union experience
• "government wouldn't listen, so we block the roads"
• Piquetero Associations as union-social organizations
• these groups took over militant functions, like demanding wage increase on public works,  not taken up by the official unions (81)
• eventually some of the piquetero groups gained control of hiring on public projects, which is a big change from normal capitalist relations
• employers had to start negotiating with piqutero organizations to get labor (82)
• the official unions were subordinated to political power, so by gaining power on their own piquetero organizations usually forced unions out of the way, took the place they should have had
• Coordination
• UTD and CTD convened congress in 2000, set seven demands (including control of hiring, wage levels, set level of plaes funds, etc) (82-83)
• activists and leaders suffered harsh repression in June 2001 (83)
• The Coordination became a nucleus for the regrouping of unemployed and the labor movement allowed for joint actions, before it was crushed in summer of 2001
• meaning this movement seemed to present a real threat to the social and poltiical order...
• but failed to transcend in regional definition, and thus unable to survive state repression (84)

Alcañiz and Scheier 2007

Alcañiz, Isabella, and Melissa Scheier. 2007. "New Social Movements with Old Party Politics". Latin American Perspectives. 34 (2): 157-171.

• looking at how new social movements interact with old parties (157)
• three factions of piquteros
• groups that are more likely to enter into agreements with the state, the FTV and the CTA
• moderate groups with the CCC
• radical groups with the Movimiento Territorial de Liberacion (MTL) and the National Piqutero Bloque
• Bloque piquetero gets fewest subsidies (158)
• Argument: preexisting partisan networks (linking unemployed to institutional political forces) determined the specific development of piqutero coalitions, and these coalitions in turn limited the strategies available to movements and ther iability to persist over time
• second try: piquetero groups formed along lines of previous partisan networks, which subsequently meant these groups had varying access to parties
• while others have shown that clientelism is important, authors show that other mechanisms of political organization can replace the need for such links
• The piqueteros are coming
• piqueteros first appeared in oil towns, places with long and rich histories of social, political, and labor organization (159)
• first wave of piqueteros tended to be unemployed union workers
• second wave (2001) were independent of, and often vocally rejected the lead of Peronist unions
• Leaders in the first wave had been labor organizers, second wave were mostly from leftist political parties (160)...even those with prior union exerience rejected verticality of peronist unions
• Old partisan networks and new coalitions
• previous social networks among piqueteros shaped the way they saw the unemployment situation, which in turn shaped coalition strategies for piqutero groups
• MTL was specifically founded around rejection of neoliberalism, distrust of peronist politics (161)
• this precludes coalition/strategy that invloves the PJ or UCR
• The Political economy of the piquetero movement
• two important environmental variables help explain piquteros
• bad economy
• unions and PJ had been based on full-employment economy, so downturn in economy in 1990s resulted in piqueteros who weren't used to being unemployed, felt they were owed a job by society (more or less) (162)
• but unions were too weak to demand them, so they protested
• social policy was decentralized, making municipalities and non-state actors the coordinators/distributors of state resources (163)
• this prompted organization on the part of these unemployed, so their groups could get control of resources
• also promoted growth of clientelism
• importantly: piquetero organizations were a place where opposition parties could get an ally in the popular sector
• Piquetero cooperatives and the rise of the MTL
• the communist party helped found the CTA, which in turn got the PC involved in te unemployed movement (164)
• FTV head D'Elia endorsed a teachers protest in 1997, which got the FTV closer to the CTA, which got the PC involved with the FTV
• 1998 FTV officially joins CTA (165)
• in June 2001 MTL created because the communists don't like the soft line taken by the FTV
• "The issue of autonomy is a central concern of the MTL movement" (165)
• but how can the MTL stay autonomous and still have the funding necessary to help its people?
• through the IMFC, Institute for the Mobilization of Cooperative Funds)
• MTL got employment through the IMFC and financial autonomy for the MTL (166)
• IMFC is a buffer between the MTL and the PC, meaning MTL has real autonomy
• IMFC was created by PC in 1958 and formed a group of cooperative banks
• seems to be independent-ish of the PC
• MTL not initially excited about cooperatives idea, which was proposed by PC and the IMFC
• eventually all three collaborate to buy/operate a mineral processing plant in 2005 (expropriation not supported by government) (166-167)
• MTL also started a large housing project in BA, supported by loans from the city (167)
• city and the MTL consider this a pilot project for future housing projects developed by social movements and paid for by government (168)
• Concluding remarks
• MTL's association with the PC offered and alternative to traditional patterns of government-labor relations
• my take: but not really, as housing project shows, government still has biggest coffers
•  odd coalition, between the horizontal MTL and the hierarchical PC, but these ties were based in historical ties
• MTL voters, of course, vote peronist (169)

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

Garay 2007

Garay, Candelaria. 2007. "Social Policy and Collective Action: Unemployed Workers, Community Associations, and Protest in Argentina". Politics & Society. 35 (2): 301-328.

• Introduction
•  unemployed and informal workers have traditionally been marginalized by labor unions, as they are a threat to formal workers (301)
• but in the 2000s the unemployed in Argentina engaged in an impressive amount of collective action (302)
• and political leaders began to want to integrate these groups into partisan politics
• Argument:  that Plan Trabajar, a national workfare program created in 1996, encouraged collective action among unemployed and informal poor workers (303), because it
• had a short supply of benefits relative to demand
• lack of clear rules to define beneficiaries
• funds were administered to community organizations
• The state responded to protests with more workfare provisions, which in turn brought on more protest!
• Challenges to Popular-Sector Collective Action (Lit Review)
• more informal employment, heterogeneity in people made organization difficult (304)
• belief that most social programs reduced collective action
• despite problem-solving groups being formed, most scholars thought these groups just got pulled into clientelistic networks (305)
• Explaining Collective Action: A Policy Centered Approach
• many of the collective identities of these unemployed only arose after or during protest of policy and state responses
• policies can generate new groups, coalitions, and/or constituencies in, around, and in response to these policies
• this is especially true if policies give money to organizations to disburse, as opposed to state disbursing them directly (306)
• Argument: the program design of Plan Trabajar favored the creation of collective action
• Program Design and Collective Action
• low supply of benefits + no transparency = grievances (306)
• funds disbursed to groups = creation of new collective organizations, and thus identities (307)
• some groups even disbursed benefits based on who showed up to protest
• horizontal linkages between these new groups also sprung up because divided they would lose benefits to more powerful, pre-existing client-machines
• State Responses to Collective action
• repression/confrontation backfired (thanks to democratic context) (308)
• negotiation
• this at first led to more protest, but eventually led to less
• unemployed groups become actors in negotiation with the state, not protesters demanding access
• Protests started before 2001, and by mid-1998 two of these unemployed groups had formed alliances with unions CTA and CCC (311)
• 2000 saw some austerity, limiting number of people who received Plan Trabajar benefits
• new associations emerged from this
• many new and old associations began coordinated nationwide protest (313)
• Duhalde increased beneficiaries despite crisis (313)
• created formal and informal negotiation spaces between state and unemployed
• broader access to benefits meant unemployed groups multiplied, but also fragmented the movement
• Effects of Collective Action
• redefined social policy
• coverage has expanded (314)
• get money instead of a basket of goods
• now you get it until you get a job
• national state came to control this budget and decision on disbursement of these funds 
• but the program seems unable to lift people out of poverty
• changed modes of interest mediation between popular sectors and the state
•  duh, new movement! (315)
• some groups community based, large
• other groups led by social militants
• still others organized from the top down (clientelistic?)
• challenged partisan machines
• popular organizations now have greater access to state resources, as opposed to trying to get them through machines (317)
• reversed normal distance between labor union and unemployed (see CTA alliance)
• created linkages between parties and unemployed groups
• PJ has gotten access to these unemployed, undermining Left parties (318)
• Kirchner tried to get these groups to be his popular sector support (successfully)
• Comparative Context
• Goes against lit, shows that in certain ways policies to alleviate poverty can cause protest, collective action, and increase in social spending (318-320)
• this is happening a bit in Brazil, too (319-320)
• these unemployed groups count as reconfiguration of the PJ (321)