Identity Under Construction: Workers’ Collective in an Argentine Metallurgical Factory

Abstract

In the 1970s, Argentina lived moments of great effervescence and labour conflict. The Santa Rosa metallurgical factory, located in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, became a centre of workers' struggle and resistance not only against the management and the state but also against certain union practices. From this factory, a union recovery movement was promoted that, in constant dialogue with the neighborhood and other factories in the area, disputed not only the leadership of the regional union but also the meaning of the union organization and of being a worker and a Peronist. In this article, I propose to analyze the process of construction of this workers’ collective that emerged from the experience at the workplace.

To understand the factory not just as a space but also as a process, as a social construction of a relational type allow us to see the determinations that this space exercises over the construction of the workers’ collective, reflecting forms of belonging and solidarity among the members of this collective that are more than just the sum of individualities. I will analyze this process of construction of the workers’ collective studying two specific conflicts that these workers carried out during the decade. We will observe how the factory space determined the constitution of an original working culture in constant dialogue with the trade union organization and with the other actors of the environment, focusing on the different responses that this collective of workers gave in different socio-political contexts.