Friday May 10th, 12pm, History Conference Room 529

Janey Fellow J. Alberto Fernandez presents his most recent work based on the 2012/2013 Janey Summer Fellowship he was awarded. See title and abstract below:

From Peronist unity to labor pluralism: The CTA and the emergence of the libertad sindical agenda in Argentina (1991-1997)

This paper analyzes the creation of the Congress of Argentine Workers (CTA), first as a movement of dissident union leaders and rank-and-file workers and later as a full-fledged union confederation fighting to obtain legal recognition in Argentina. It focuses on the evolution of the concept of libertad sindical and the move towards pluralism in the Argentine labor movement. Although this paper’s macro-level narrative coincides with comparative analysis of labor politics in Latin America in placing the creation of the CTA within the wave of economic liberalization policies that strained the relationship between labor-based parties and their union constituencies, the paper seeks to highlight the factors that influenced the timing and specific outcomes of this process in Argentina. It argues that, as mainstream Peronism became firmly associated with the government undertaking the economic liberalization policies and their allies in the labor movement, the CTA had to refrain from claiming for itself the “true” legacy of Peronism -a common tactic among dissident union factions until then- and “give up” Peronism as the main symbolic reference of labor’s political organization in order to assert its right to exist and justify its struggle for a more pluralistic labor movement in Argentina. The CTA’s internal ideological diversity was reflected in the pluralistic nature of the political alliances of which the organization was part in the 1990s, and in its visions for the future of the Argentine labor movement.