Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
During the 1930s Argentina's two railroad unions were the dominant labor organizations in the country. Their members considered themselves the elite of the working class. Through collective contracts and the efforts of the unions, the workers had gained favorable conditions for themselves, so that they were in many ways an elite, despite the harsh reality that the industry in which they worked was in decay.
Why were they able to do this? Not because they all possessed special skills. Groups of skilled workers have often been able to secure for themselves a strong position, as have the engineers and firemen who make up La Fraternidad. In countries in which the position of labor unions is not protected by law the ability of widely differentiated groups to organize successfully is unusual. Therefore, this paper will concentrate on the members of the Unión Ferroviaria. Membership in the Unión Ferroviaria was extended all along the far-flung railroad network and ranged from craftsmen in the repair shops to poorly paid and unskilled crews that maintained the tracks.
The research on which this article is based was made possible by a grant from the Doherty Foundation. I would like to thank Tulio Halperín Donghi, James D. Graham, and John H. Coatsworth for their helpful comments.
1 For the relations between the Unión Ferroviaria and the government see, Horowitz, Joel “Adaptation and Change in the Argentine Labor Movement, 1930–1943: A Study of Five Unions” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1979), especially pp. 375–401.Google Scholar
2 There was resentment of the dominance of the union by shop workers. For example, see the constitution of a group in the mid-1930s that tried to challenge the Unión Ferroviaria, partially by establishing proportional representation on the executive committee, Federación Obreros y Empleados Ferroviarios Estatutos (Buenos Aires: Compañía Impresora Argentina, 1938). This appeal forced the Unión Ferroviaria to modify the way it elected its executive committee. El Obrero Ferroviario, Jan. 16/Feb. 1, 1941; Unión Ferroviaria Memoria y balance correspondiente al año 1940 (Buenos Aires, 1941), pp. 21–23 (hereafter, U.F., Memoria 19—). These problems did not prevent the building of a unified organization.
3 Salaman, Graeme, Community and Occupation: An Exploration of Work/Leisure Relationships (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 19.Google Scholar I have drawn the majority of my ideas about occupational communities from Salaman's book, which presents the concept of community very clearly. The concept is used in discussing a union in Lipset, Seymour Martin, Trow, Martin A., and Coleman, James S., Union Democracy (Glencoe, III.: The Free Press, 1956),Google Scholar but the authors find it to be one of the causes of internal democracy, which was not the case in the Unión Ferroviaria. Still, the book is extremely useful.
4 See my article, “The Impact of Pre-1943 Labor Union Traditions on Peronism,” Journal of Latin American Studies 15, No. 1 (May, 1983):101–106
5 Lipset, , et al., Union Democracy, p. 79,Google Scholar clearly feels that the creation of institutions by the workers themselves is more important in fostering an occupational community than the existence of institutions created by outside groups or the union itself.
6 Cottrell, W. Fred, The Railroader (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1940), p. 4.Google Scholar While an occupation community existed in the United States, the railroad workers did not form a unified labor organization.
7 Salaman, , Community and Occupation, pp. 59–113.Google Scholar
8 A wider community may have existed. According to railroad legend, La Fraternidad was founded with the help of a North American sent by one of the railroad brotherhoods. Buyán, Marcelino, Una avanzada obrera: Origen, desarrollo, luchas y conquistas de La Fraternidad (Buenos Aires: La Vanguarida, 1933), pp. 9–10 Google Scholar; Chiti, Juan B., and Agnelli, Francisco, Cincuentenario de “La Fraternidad”: Fundación, desarrollo, obra (Buenos Aires: Revashino Hnos., 1937), pp. 22–25.Google Scholar
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10 Cottrell, , The Railroaders, pp. 46–49.Google Scholar Lipset, et al. Union Democracy found such a feeling among the printers, pp. 108–21.Google Scholar
11 Cottrell, , The Railroaders, pp. 71–77 Google Scholar; Salaman, , Community and Occupation, pp. 81–83.Google Scholar There were very large clusters of railroad workers near the shops in Pérez, Junín and Remedios de Escalada. These concentrations of railroaders helped elect a number of railroad workers to local office in the partidos of Junín and Lomas de Zamora, where the shops of the Pacífico and the Sud Railroads were located. See La Vanguardia, Jan. 25, 1932, for the election results.
12 Juan Rodríguez, Instituto Di Telia Oral History Program, pp. 24–25 (hereinafter IDTOHP); El Obrero Ferroviario, Oct. 16, 1937.
13 For examples of the discussion of the question of the labor aristocracy in Great Britain, see Hobsbawm, E.J., “Lenin and the ‘Aristocracy of Labour,’ ” Revolutionaries (New York: New American Library, 1973), pp. 121–29;Google Scholar Gray, R.Q., “Styles of Life, the ‘Labour Aristocracy’ and Class Relations in Late Nineteenth Century Edinburgh,” International Review of Social History 18, no. 3 (1973): 428–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gray, , The Labour Aristocracy in Victorian Edinburgh (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Moorehouse, H.F., “The Marxist Theory of Labour Aristocracy,” Social History, 3, no. 1 (Jan., 1978): 61–82 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reid, Alastair, “Politics and Economics in the Formation of the British Working Class: A Response to H. F. Moorehouse,” Social History 3, no. 3 (Oct., 1978): 347–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a questioning of the usefulness of the theory of the labor aristocracy in modern Latin America, see Jelin, Elizabeth, and Torre, Juan Carlos, “Los nuevos trabajadores en América Latina: Una reflexión sobre la tesis de la aristocracia obrera,” Desarrollo Económico 85 (Apr./June, 1982): 3–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Unfortunately, there are no personal memoirs of railroad workers. It is therefore necessary to depend on the ideas of the leadership. While the Unión Ferroviaria was highly bureaucratized for the period, its structure cannot be compared to later eras.
14 Pedro Otero, IDTOHP, pp. 47–48.
15 Comisión especial de representantes de empresas y obreros ferroviarios, Revisión de escalafones, convenios y reglamentos (Buenos Aires: Guillermo Kraft, 1930), p. 159.
16 Interview with Luis Gay, Buenos Aires, May 5, 1976; interview with Andrés Cabona, Buenos Aires, Aug. 15, 1976.
17 For examples of the financial contributions of the Unión Ferroviaria to other organizations, see Unión Ferroviaria, Libros de actas de la Comisión Directiva, Acta 6, May 17, 1935, pp. 16–18; El Obrero Ferroviario, June 1 and 20, 1932. For the actions of locals, see La Vanguardia, Sept. 13, Dec. 5, 1930; El Obrero Ferroviario, May 1, 1933, Apr. 1, 1935.
18 El Obrero Ferroviario, Sept. 1, 1936.
19 Ibid., Oct. 16, 1936, July 1, 1938, June 16/July 1, 1941, July 16/Aug. 1, 1943, for examples.
20 Unión Ferroviaria, Libros de actas de la Comisión Directiva, Acta 6, May 17, 1935, p. 22. For similar sentiments, see Acta 22, Dec. 20, 1933, pp. 1–2, 42–64, especially 42–43; Confederación General del Trabajo, , Acta del congreso general constituyente (Buenos Aires, 1936), pp. 41–45 Google Scholar; Actas de las reuniones del Comité Central confederal: Efectuadas en mayo de 1940 y en octubre de 1942 (Buenos Aires, 1942), pp. 35–85; El Obrero Ferroviario, May 1, 1943.
21 For the extent of the railroad network, see Ministerio de Obras Públicas Dirección General de Ferrocarriles, Estadística de los ferrocarriles en explotación, 1940/1941, (Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos del Ministerio de Obras Públicas, 1943), 49:222. In 1930 there were 148,717 workers on the railroads. This shrank to 131,006 in 1942/1943. Santa Cruz, Juan Manuel, Ferrocarriles argentinos (Santa Fe: Imprenta de la Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 1966), p. 33.Google Scholar
22 See below for the conditions on the State Railways.
23 For a discussion of this epoch, see Goldberg, Heidi, “Railroad Unionization in Argentina, 1912–1929: The Limitations of Working Class Alliance” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1979), pp. 142–239 Google Scholar; Chiti, and Agnelli, , Cincuentenario de “La Fraternidad,” pp. 319–28,Google Scholar 383–406; Fernández, Manuel F., La Unión Ferroviaria a través del tiempo (Buenos Aires: Unión Ferroviaria, 1948), pp. 83–101,Google Scholar 117–48. See note 2 and below.
24 Maratta, Sebastián, El movimiento sindical argentino: Su génesis y desarrollo (Buenos Aires: Editorial Calomino, 1970) 3:96 Google Scholar; Casaretto, Martín, Historia del movimiento obrero argentino (Buenos Aires: José Vescovo, 1947), 2:6–7 Google Scholar; Goodwin, Paul B., Los ferrocarriles británicos y la U.C.R., 1916–1930, trans. Rodríguez, Celso, (Buenos Aires: Ediciones La Bastilla, 1974), pp. 149–247.Google Scholar For examples of the contracts, see U.F., Memoria 1925, pp. 5–13.
25 See El Obrero Ferroviario, Oct. 16, 1942. For road and track maintenance workers see ibid., Apr. 16, 1938; Reglamento escalafón para el personal de peones de cuadrilla de vía: Convenio entre ferrocarriles particulares de jurisdición nacional y la Unión Ferroviaria (Buenos Aires: Ferrocarril de Buenos Aires al Pacífico, 1938).
26 Fernández, , La Unión Ferroviaria, p. 176 Google Scholar; Goldberg, , “Railroad Unionization,” pp. 280–82. Both the government and the railroads refused to recognize the union's right to represent white-collar workers.Google Scholar
27 Review of the River Plate, Mar. 21, 1930, p. 23.
28 Departamento Nacional del Trabajo, Condiciones de vida de la familia obrera (Buenos Aires, 1937), p. 25. The studies conducted by the Departamento Nacional del Trabajo were not very scientific, but they do give an indication of what conditions were like.
29 Departamento Nacional del Trabajo, División de Estadística, Investigaciones sociales, 1938 (Buenos Aires, 1939), pp. 10–77; Fresco, Manuel A., Comó encaré la política obrera durante mi gobierno (La Plata, 1940), 1:226–37.Google Scholar
30 AH of the contracts had clauses mandating that at specified intervals wages would go up until they reached a maximum.
31 For salaries in other industries, see Departamento Nacional del Trabajo, División de Estadística, Investigaciones sociales, 1941 (Buenos Aires, 1942), pp. 18–51.
32 Ministerio de Obras Públicas, Caja Nacional de Jubilaciones y Pensiones de Empleados Ferroviarios, Memoria correspondiente al año 1941 (Buenos Aires, 1942), pp. 157–75 (hereafter Caja de Ferroviarios, Memoria 19—).
33 El Obrero Ferroviario, Oct. 1 and 15, 1942.
34 For example, see the problems that occurred on the Ferrocarril Oeste because of one appointment. de Buenos Aires, Ferrocarril Oeste, El “trabajo a reglamento” ante el Poder Ejecutivo, la Justicia Federal y la opinión pública (Buenos Aires, 1932)Google Scholar; La Nación, May 18-June 12, 1932; La Vanguardia, May 18-June 12, 1932.
35 For the extent of the government regulations, see Ley y reglamento general de los ferrocarriles nacionales. Publicación oficial (Buenos Aires: Compañía Impresora Argentina, 1936). For the tie-ups that could occur if all the rules were obeyed, see note 34.
36 For an example, see de Buenos Aires, Ferrocarril Provincial, Escalafón y reglamento interno para el personal de peones de cuadrillas de vía y obras (La Plata: Taller de impresiones oficiales, 1938).Google Scholar For the length of vacation time, see El Obrero Ferroviario, May 1, 1931.
37 El Obrero Ferroviario, Mar. 1, 1940.
38 Ortiz, Raúl Scalatami, Historia de los ferrocarriles argentinos, 7th ed. (Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1975), pp. 364–69Google Scholar; Ortiz, Ricardo M., El ferrocarril en la economía argentina, 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: Editorial CAtedra Lisandro de la Torre, 1958), pp. 126–27.Google Scholar
39 The union constantly complained about the conditions on the State Railways. For examples, see El Obrero Ferroviario, June 1/16, 1939, June 1/16, 1942, May 1, 1943; La Vanguardia, Feb. 7, 14, Mar. 19, 1940.
40 El Obrero Ferroviario, Mar. 16, 1942; Antonio di Santo, IDTOHP, p. 3; Comisión especial de representantes de empresas y obreros ferroviarios, Revisión de escalafones, pp. 239–40.
41 See laws 10.650 and 12.598 in Anales de legislación argentina 2 (Buenos Aires: Editorial La Ley, 1954): 1081–86; ibid., 3 (1953): 843.
42 Greca, Alcides, “El problema de la vivienda económica en la República Argentina,” La Habitación Popular, July/Sept. 1938, p. 265.Google Scholar See also Lenhardston, Emilio, “El problema financiero de la vivienda para la población de medianos recursos,” La Ingenería 47, no. 9 (Sept., 1943): 643–53Google Scholar; Departamento Nacional del Trabajo, División de Estadística, Condiciones de vida, especially pp. 56–57; Bunge, Alejandro E., Una nueva Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Guillermo Kraft, 1940), pp 351–78.Google Scholar
43 Caja de Ferroviarios, Memoria 1941, pp. 71–78, 183–91. See also Chanourdie, Enrique, and Poli, Bernardo D., El Hogar Ferroviario: Su eficiente acción social y gremial (Buenos Aires: Caja Nacional de Jubilaciones y Pensiones de Empleados Ferroviarios, 1939).Google Scholar
44 Caja Ferroviarios, Memoria 1941, p. 78.
45 See Horowitz, , “Adaptation and Change in the Argentine Labor Movement,” pp. 191–94,Google Scholar 219–26.
46 Cruz, Santa, Ferrocarriles argentinos, p. 33.Google Scholar
47 See Cottrell, , The Railroader, pp. 4–5,Google Scholar for comments on how U.S. railroad workers are made to conform in their speech and other types of behavior.
48 Jesus Fernández, IDTOHP, pp. 21–22; El Obrero Ferroviario, Oct. 1, 1938. For the dissident movement, see Horowitz, , “Adaptation and Change in the Argentine Labor Movement,” pp. 387–401.Google Scholar
49 El Obrero Ferroviario, Apr. 17, 1940.
50 For examples, see El Obrero Ferroviario, Apr. I, 1931, Apr. I, 1932.
51 U.F., Memoria 1936, pp. 82–85. For other listings of mutual aid societies, see El Obrero Ferroviario, Oct. 1, 1941; Anuario socialista 1930 (Buenos Aires: La Vanguardia, 1929), p. 147.
52 U.F., Memoria 1936, pp. 82, 85; El Obrero Ferroviario, Oct. 1, 1941; U.F., Memoria 1933, p. 13.
53 For the example, see El Obrero Ferroviario, May 1, 1939. For other information on cooperatives, see U.F. Memoria 1936 pp. 86–88; Anuario Socialista 1930, p. 148; La Vanguardia, Sept. 21, Nov. 20, 1930, Nov. 12, 1931, Dec. 17, 1932; El Obrero Ferroviario, June 1, 1934, Nov. 16, 1939.
54 El Obrero Ferroviario, Dec. 1, 1933, Mar. 1, July 16, 1942.
55 U.F., memoria 1936, pp. 86–88; Anuario socialista 1930, p. 148. The union even bought a small number of shares in 31 electric power cooperatives. U.F., Memoria 1942, p. 93.
56 For the statutes, see El Obrero Ferroviario, Dec. 16, 1942. For examples of desires along these lines, ibid., June 1/16, 1931, July 1/16, 1933, July 1, 1942. Union banks were quite common in the U.S. in the 1920s when loans were difficult for workers to obtain. More than 30 such banks existed. New York Times, May 30, 1982, p. F5.
57 El Obrero Ferroviario, May 1, 1939; U.F., Memoria 1936, p. 84; Caja Ferroviarios, Memoria 1941, p. 157; Ministerio de Obras Públicas, Dirección General de Ferrocarriles, Estadística de los Ferrocarriles, 49:244.
58 El Obrero Ferroviario, Nov. 16, 1939; Dirección Nacional de Estadística y Censos, Cuarto censo general de la Nación (Buenos Aires, 1948), 1:371.
59 U.F., Memoria 1928, pp. 45–48. For the nature of the decision-marking process, see Horowitz, , “Adaptation and Change in the Argentine Labor Movement,” pp. 438–44.Google Scholar
60 For the number of locals see U.F., Memoria, 1930–1942. For the numbers in other unions, see Departamento Nacional del Trabajo, División de Estadística, Organización sindical (Buenos Aires, 1941).
61 Juan Rodríguez, IDTOHP, pp. 8–9; Camilo Almarza, IDTOHP, pp. 15–17.
62 El Obrero Ferroviario, June 1, 1936, June 1/16, 1939, June 1/16, 1940.
63 Horowitz, “The Impact of Pre-1943 Labor Union Traditions on Peronism.”
64 See Ritter, Gerhard A., “Workers’ Culture in Imperial Germany: Problems and Points of Departure for Research,” Journal of Contemporary History 13, no. 2 (Apr. 1978): 165–189 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roth, Guenther, The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany: A Study in Working-Class Isolation and National Integration (Totowa, N.J.: The Bedminster Press, 1963), especially 212–47Google Scholar; Baker, Robert P., “Socialism in the Nord, 1880–1914: A Regional View of the French Socialist Movement,” International Review of Social History 12 no. 3 (1967): 357–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The I.L.G.W.U. in the United States was similar to the Argentine unions in this matter. Munts, Raymond, and Munts, Mary Louise, “Welfare History of the I.L.G.W.U.,” Labor History 9 (Special Supplement, Spring, 1968): 82–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
65 Ferroviaria, Unión, Estatutos (Buenos Aires: Compañía Impresora Argentina, 1935), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar
66 Chiti, and Agnelli, , Cincuentenario de “La Fraternidad,” pp. 337–38,Google Scholar 340–41. Fernández, , La Unión Ferroviaria, p. 431.Google Scholar Anuario socialista 1930, pp. 148–49.
67 El Obrero Ferroviario, May 1, 1939.
68 See El Obrero Ferroviario, Mar. 1, 1931, Dec. 1, 1937, July 1, and Oct. 1, 1939.
69 For some figures, see Anuario socialista 1930, pp. 142, 147–48; U.F., Memoria 1936, pp. 89–91.
70 U.F., Memoria 1936, pp. 89–91, El Obrero Ferroviario, Mar. 16. 1932. Nov. 16. 1939. Feb. 16, 1942.
71 Federación, July 1931, Jan. 1932, May 1933; Stearns, Peter N., Lives of Labor: Work in a Maturing Industrial Society (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1975), p. 9 Google Scholar; Roth, , The Social Democrats, p. 241.Google Scholar The categories into which the books were divided may have been different.
72 See La Vanguardia, Oct. 14, Nov. 14, 1930, Aug. 25, 1931, July 4, Dec. 9, 1939; El Obrero Ferroviario, Mar. 1, 1931, Oct. 1, 1935.
73 For the celebrations, see El Obrero Ferroviario and La Vanguardia around May 1, June 20 and October 6 during this entire period. For celebrations of the birthday of La Fraternidad despite existing tensions, see El Obrero Ferroviario, Aug. 1 and 16, 1933. For the nature of the dispute, Chiti, and Agnelli, , Cincuentenario de “La Fraternidad,” pp. 408–12Google Scholar; Maratta, , Movimiento sindical argentino 3: 301–303 Google Scholar; Casaretto, , Historia del movimiento obrero argentino, 2:7.Google Scholar
74 See El Obrero Ferroviario, Apr. 16, 1931, May 1, 1933.
75 For example, ibid., May 15, Oct. 1, 15, 1931; La Vanguardia, Oct. 10, 1931, Oct. 14, 1939.
76 See El Obrero Ferroviario, Dec. 1, 1930, Feb. 1, 1931, Sept. 1, 1934, July 16, 1935; La Vanguardia, Feb. 6, 1932.
77 El Obrero Ferroviario, Dec. 1 and 16, 1930, Apr. 16, Sept. 1, 1931; La Vanguardia, July 29, 1931.
78 El Obrero Ferroviario, Feb. 16, 1931, Mar. 1, 1943.
79 Ibid., Apr. 1, Dec. 16, 1930, Mar. 16, 1932, Feb. 1, 1935, Nov. 16, 1939.
80 The contracts provided for limited free passages for the railroad workers and their families. See de Buenos Aires, Ferrocarril Provincial, Escalafón y reglamento, p. 8.Google Scholar
81 El Obrero Ferroviario, July 1, Oct. 16, 1939, Feb. 16, Mar. 1, 1943; La Vanguardia, Oct. 6, 1939; Fernández, , La Unión Ferroviaria, p. 341.Google Scholar
82 U.F., Memoria 1940, p. 39; U.F., Memoria 1942, p. 46.
83 El Obrero Ferroviario, Feb. 1, Aug. 1, Dec. 1, 1935, Dec. 1, 1937, Oct. 1, 1938, Jan. 16/Feb. 1, 1942; U.F., Memoria 1940, p. 39.
84 See Unión Ferroviaria, Libros de actas de la Comisión Directiva, Acta 21, Nov. 15, 1933, p. 37; El Obrero Ferroviario, Jan. 15, 1933, May 1, 1936.
85 Fernández, , La Unión Ferroviaria, pp. 255–60Google Scholar; Chiti, and Agnelli, , Cincuentenario de “La Fraternidad,” pp. 354–57Google Scholar, El Obrero Ferroviario, Mar. 1, 1937, Feb. 16, 1939, Aug. 1, Nov. 16, 1940. The government also promised a subsidy of 900,000 pesos for the construction of the hospital, but the unions never received it because they bought an existing building. El Obrero Ferroviario, July 16/Aug. 1, 1943.
86 El Obrero Ferroviario, Aug. 1, 1940.
87 Ibid., Feb. 16, 1939-Nov. 1, 1940.
88 Ibid., Aug. 1, Nov. 16, 1940.
89 Ibid., Aug. 1, 1942.
90 Caja de Ferroviarios, Memoria 1937, p. 41: El Obrero Ferroviario, Nov. 1, 1940; Unión Ferroviaria, Acta oficial de la XVIII asamblea general ordinaria de delegados (Buenos Aires, 1941), p. 98.
91 See CGT, 1943–1946.
92 El Obrero Ferroviario, Jan. 15/Feb. 1, 1941.
93 Unión Ferroviaria, Acta oficial de la XVIII asamblea, p. 97; Fernández, , La Unión Ferroviaria, pp. 261–262 Google Scholar; El Obrero Ferroviario, Jan. 15/Feb. 1, 1941.
94 U.F., Memoria 1942, p. 41.
95 See la Vanguardia, Sept. 19, 1931.
96 Unión Ferroviaria, Estatutos, articles 12–18. For an example of the paying of subsidies, Unión Ferroviaria, Libros de actas de la Comisión Directiva, Acta 17, Oct. 15, 1930, pp. 11–12. For the amount of money paid out, see U.F., Memoria 1936, p. 71.
97 It is not possible to exclude any group from the calculation since the union did not issue statistics by job category. The number of eligible workers is from Caja Ferroviarios, Memoria 1941, p. 172. Traction workers were excluded because they would belong to La Fraternidad. Also excluded were all who made more than 500 pesos a month, as it can be assumed that they were supervisory personnel. The number of dues payers is from U.F., Memoria 1942. p. 121. For the small role in the union role of administrative personnel and of those who worked on the State Railways, see El Obrero Ferroviario, June 1/16, 1940; Luis Rodríguez, IDTOHP, p. 14.