This book is about car workers in Mexico. Before beginning a detailed analysis of the material, however, it would be as well to situate this study in terms of the larger theoretical debate about Latin American workers and their insertion in the political systems of those countries.

After a brief discussion of these theoretical controversies, this chapter examines what may conveniently be described as the standard account of the historical development of the labour movement in Latin America and, particularly, Mexico. This analysis, which is widely accepted by social scientists, sees Mexican trade unions as more or less passive instruments of an authoritarian state. The corporatist control over labour, it is argued, results in the co-optation or repression of rank-and-file insurgency, and what might otherwise be a potential challenge to the stability of the political system is turned into a bastion of support for the regime. The argument presented in this book is that this ‘standard account’ is defective in a number of important areas and that, consequently, our understanding of the dynamics of the Mexican political system is in need of substantial modification.

The ‘standard account’ argues that the subordination of organized labour to the state has deep historical roots, and one of the aims of this chapter will be to provide a brief survey of the history of organized labour in Mexico, indicating on the contrary just how problematic state control over working-class mobilization has been.