Union Organizing after the Collapse of Neoliberalism in Argentina: The Place of Community in the Revitalization of the Labor Movement (2005–2011)

Abstract

Recent Argentine history showed that since 2003 the labor movement became increasingly relevant due to protests organized by unionized formal workers. Labor revitalization in a context of persistent informality raised the following question: Were there union organizing strategies that related formal workers to the broader working class community that included informal workers? This article answered the question through the analysis of union strategies from three formal sector firms located in one city of the Northern Gran Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 2005 and 2011. The evidence from this comparison showed that in two of the factories there were union strategies to reach the community. The existence of a grassroots democratic union in the shop floor appeared as a necessary condition for inclusive union strategies. The scale of those relations varied according to the geographical pattern of workers’ housing, which was the result of the company’s localization strategy.