La época de los militares : Representaciones, categorías y clasificaciones de ex-obreros de Swift en torno a la violencia política y estatal

En este artículo abordo los modos en que los ex-obreros del frigorífico Swift de Berisso, evocan los acontecimientos más resonantes de la violencia política, paraestatal y estatal en la década de 1970, ligados a la fábrica. Para ello analizo los relatos, construidos con entrevistas en profundidad, de los ex-obreros que en aquellos años fueron militantes de izquierda y de otros con diversas orientaciones políticas y actitudes frente a la organización gremial. Por un lado, exploro las huellas del disciplinamiento social en las vivencias narradas y el desdibujamiento de su significación en algunos casos. Por otro lado, doy cuenta de la heterogeneidad de sentidos atribuidos a dos expresiones nativas que estructuran los relatos y aluden a dos agrupamientos sociales: los que estaban metidos en algo y lo que no estaban metidos en nada. Muestro el carácter difuso de la frontera entre ambos grupos y algunas valoraciones en torno a la igualación de violencias

Las huelgas de los estibadores portuarios en el sur santafesino en 1928

El 2 de mayo de 1928 se inicia una huelga de estibadores portuarios en Rosario después de años de tibia actividad sindical. Días más tarde, varios hechos de sangre provocaron la solidaridad obrera con dos paros generales que conmovieron a la ciudad por su agitación y violencia. Los portuarios villenses también se solidarizaron y, un mes más tarde, encabezaron un violento reclamo laboral. El motivo inicial de las huelgas fue el salarial, pero la cuestión de fondo que hilvana a ambas experiencias es la puja social por el deterioro de las condiciones laborales y las imposiciones empresarias en el control y selección de la fuerza de trabajo.En principio la espontaneidad de la protesta tomó por sorpresa a las organizaciones sindicales de izquierda que durante la década del 20 habían mostraban varias fracturas, no obstante será la oportunidad que explica la reorganización y difusión del movimiento obrero con posterioridad. En otro sentido, los conflictos en Rosario y Villa Constitución reflejan la compleja trama de la política santafesina y su conexión con el ámbito laboral. Asimismo, creemos que los sucesos de 1928 tienen una repercusión mayor que la estrictamente local engarzándose en un ciclo de conflictividad que involucra a buena parte de la economía agroexportadora

Avances en el estudio de la relación entre sindicalismo y kirchnerismo

Luego de la crisis económica, social y política que marcó el fin de la convertibilidad en Argentina, las políticas desplegadas por el gobierno de N. Kirchner contribuyeron a la relegitimación del sistema político a partir de la construcción de un proyecto político hegemónico, articulando una alianza con los sindicatos, particularmente con sectores que habían resistido las políticas neoliberales en los años '90. Esta alianza entró en crisis hacia fines del año 2010, crisis que se expresó abiertamente en 2012. En este trabajo nos proponemos reconstruir las características generales de la relación entre sindicalismo y kirchnerismo sobre la base del análisis de la política laboral y sus cambios hacia el movimiento obrero y los trabajadores

Conflictos obreros en Mendoza (1969-1974) : cambios en las formas de organización y de lucha producto del Mendozazo : Un análisis del 'borramiento' del conflicto como política de la memoria de la historiografía regional

El trabajo estudia los procesos de toma de conciencia que tuvieron lugar en la provincia de Mendoza a principios de los años '70. Momento en que distintas fracciones de la clase obrera construyeron alternativas políticas que buscaban la superación del sistema social vigente, nos abocamos a conocer los alineamientos político-sociales que asumieron los trabajadores alejados de los grandes centros industriales. Analizamos también el desarrollo de los conflictos intragremiales, los que en gran medida dejan entrever procesos de construcción de autonomía. Optamos por abordar el estudio de los conflictos obreros a nivel provincial a través de una medición cuantitativa de sus luchas, metodología que entendemos nos permite objetivar los procesos de lucha de clases en que se encontraba el conjunto de la sociedad argentina. En esta línea, el Mendozazo [abril de 1972] aparece como un hito central a dilucidar, entendiéndolo como un salto en cantidad y en calidad respecto de los procesos de toma de conciencia. Éste expresa un proceso de ruptura, que en su búsqueda por lograr ya sea la democratización o la superación de la forma en que se encuentra organizada la sociedad, entronca con las luchas nacionales del período. Nos interrogamos acerca su génesis y desarrollo, y por los cambios ocurridos en las formas de organización y de lucha de los trabajadores a nivel provincial como producto de este hecho social de masas. Para ello elaboramos un mapa de los conflictos obreros entre los años 1969 y 1974, que nos permite registrar la intensidad de los conflictos, el lugar de su ocurrencia, los sectores más movilizados y los objetivos de su acción. Asimismo, da cuenta de la dinámica de la conflictividad de carácter inter e intragremial, política y teórica; disputas que no estuvieron escindidas del posicionamiento que las distintas fracciones obreras asumieron respecto de las fuerzas sociales que por entonces disputaban el poder en la Argentina. Estos datos cuanti-cualitativos son luego puestos en diálogo con un estudio en profundidad, que analiza la experiencia del SOEP, sindicato de obreros y empleados públicos surgido al calor del Mendozazo. El mismo nos sirve para pensar cómo el proceso de avance de las fracciones más retardatarias de la sociedad logró cooptar a ciertos sectores que habían iniciado un proceso de autonomía e indisciplinamiento social; puesto que tanto de los resultados que arroja el mapeo como del proceso que muestra el estudio de caso seleccionado, se desprende que al menos hasta el momento que comprende este trabajo, el disciplinamiento gremial no fue un proceso que necesitó de grandes niveles de violencia material, sino que expresa un momento de construcción de hegemonía por parte de los sectores del denominado sindicalismo ortodoxo

Las potencialidades políticas de lo gremial y sus límites : Un caso de sindicalismo clasista

En este artículo nos proponemos realizar una indagación sobre el sindicalismo clasista a partir del período político inaugurado por la presidencia de Néstor Kirchner. De esta manera, planteamos una comparación con las primeras experiencias de esta tradición sindical en los años '70. Específicamente, se trata de indagar en torno a la relación entre la dirigencia sindical clasista y el conjunto de los trabajadores por ella representados. Nos preguntamos centralmente por cuál es la naturaleza de la relación entre la dirección gremial y las bases, en esta orientación en particular. Para ello, tomaremos como caso de estudio el sindicalismo desarrollado por la Junta Interna de ATE (Asociación Trabajadores del Estado) en el Hospital Garrahan, en el contexto del nuevo ciclo de relaciones laborales abierto en Argentina a partir de 2003

e-Consultation as a tool for participation in teachers’ unions: the greater the focus, the greater the number of visits

In the 2000’s, the Internet became the preferred mean for the citizens to communicate. The YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, i.e., the social networks in general appeared together with the Web 2.0, which allows an extraordinary interaction between citizens and the democratic institutions. The trade unions constantly fight governments’ decisions, especially in periods of crisis like the one that the world, Europe and, in particular, Portugal are facing. In this regard, the use of e-participation platforms is expected to strengthen the relationship between trade unions and the education community. This paper reports the research about the planning and driving of a series of experiments of online public consultation, launched by teachers’ trade unions. These experiments are compared with those of other countries, such as Australia, United Kingdom and United States of America. A quantitative analysis of the results regarding hits, subscriptions, and response rates is presented, and it is compared with the 90-9-1 rule, the ASCU model and data from government agencies. The experiments performed used the Liberopinion, an online platform that supports bidirectional asynchronous communication. A better understanding of the benefits of these collaborative environments is expected by promoting quality of interaction between actors.

Educational pamphlet series.

[1] The rise of the clothing workers ... [2] Problems of labor organizations ... [3] Recent developments in trade unionism ... [5] A proposal for an unemployment fund in th4e men's clothing industry ... [8] The message of internationalism ... [19] Union rules of order.

Wage scale : award of New York Arbitration Board.

"A small primer of first principles of unionism."

Fighting, anger, frustration and tears: Matthew's story of hegemonic masculinity

This paper draws on Matthew's story to illustrate the conflicting discourses of being a boy and being a student. Matthew is 12 years old and in Grade Six, his final year at Banrock Primary ( a K- 6 Australian State School). School is far from a happy place for Matthew - his tearful accounts of his combative relationships with his peers and his teacher highlight his emotional distress. The paper's analytic focus draws attention to some of the ways Matthew's harmful storylines of hegemonic masculinity are made possible through, in particular, his teacher's gendered philosophies and her strategies of individualism and control. In this regard, Matthew's story provides insight into the potentially counterproductive realities of teacher practice in relation to addressing issues of masculinity within the school environment. Against this backdrop, the paper stresses the importance of teachers drawing on a sound research-based framework of gender knowledges that can illuminate how masculinities are constructed, regulated and, indeed, transformed through the power relations of everyday social practice, including teacher practice.

Interactions between behaviour and plasma steroids within the scramble mating system of the promiscuous green turtle, Chelonia mydas

We measured plasma androgen (combined testosterone and 5 alpha-dihydrotestosterone) (A) and corticosterone (B) in the promiscuous green turtle (Chelonia mydas) during courtship in the southern Great Barrier Reef. This study examined if reproductive behaviors and intermale aggression induced behavioral androgen and adrenocortical responses in reproductively active male and female green turtles. Associations between reproductive behavior and plasma steroids were investigated in green turtles across the population and within individuals. Levels across a range of both asocial and social behaviors were compared including (a) free swimming behavior; (b) initial courtship interactions; (c) mounted behavior (male and female turtles involved in copulatory activities); (d) intermale aggression (rival males that physically competed with another male turtle or mounted males recipient to these aggressive interactions); and (e) extensive courtship damage (male turtles that had accumulated excessive courtship damage from rival males). Behavioral androgen responses were detected in male turtles, in that plasma A was observed to increase with both attendant and mounted behavior. Male turtles who had been subjected to intermale aggression or who had accumulated severe courtship damage exhibited significantly lower plasma A than their respective controls. No pronounced adrenocortical response was observed after either intermale aggression or accumulation of extensive courtship damage. Female turtles exhibited a significant increase in plasma B during swimming versus mounted behavior, but no change in plasma A. We discuss our results in terms of how scramble polygamy might influence behavioral androgen interactions differently from more typical combative and territorial forms Of male polygamy. (C) 1999 Academic Press.

Assessing Union Strategies in Indonesian Telecommunications Industry

This article explores the implementation of a comprehensive model of union strategy,consisting of union aims, union methods, union tactics, and level of decision-making (Gahan 1998). The analysis further employs the framework of Boxall and Haynes (1997) to assess the dominant strategy pattern of the unions. Empirical data are provided from a survey of seven national enterprise unions in the telecommunications industry in Indonesia. Research findings reveal that consultancy unionism is playing important roles in explaining the relationships among unions, workers, and employers. This pattern of strategy places more emphasis on servicing and limited partnership with employers. The stronger organising solidarity from their members may improve their partnership in the interest of union survival facing tough competition in the telecommunications business.

Trade unions and productivity:the impact of union presence on labour productivity in Korean manufacturing

This thesis examines the theoretical and empirical relationship between trade unions and productivity in the Korean auto and cement manufacturing industries, during the 1980s. It challenges the tenets of the existing debate by stressing the contingent nature of this relationship. In particular this thesis pinpoints inadequacies of econometric analysis as the only method of judging this association between union presence and productivity, because this ignores national and historical industrial relations contexts. Moreover, the polarity between positive and negative views of trade union influences on productivity is seen as needlessly limited, failing as it does to consider the full context of labour-management dynamics within the employment relationship. Empirically, this thesis focuses on the unionism and productivity during two contrasting political periods: the first a time of constraint on union action and the second a period of relative freedom. It examines these periods using a full range of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Of particular significant is the inclusion of attitude surveys of the relationship between the presence of unions and productivity conducted amongst workers, managers and trade union officials. The broad conclusion of the thesis is a rejection of the validity of continuing to examine the relationship between trade unions and productivity without locating this within national and historical industrial relations contexts.

The construct of work commitment: Testing an integrative framework

This dissertation meta-analytically examined the expansive material associated with work commitment. Work commitment, a multidimensional construct, encompasses the level of involvement an employee has with his or her work, organization, job, career, and union (Morrow & Goetz, 1998). Each of the dimensions of work commitment has been further divided into a number of subdimensions. The primary purpose of this study was to (1) cumulate the correlations found among each of the dimensions of work commitment to see which, if any, were intercorrelated, and to (2) determine the impact of work commitment dimensions and subdimensions on specific outcome variables (job satisfaction, job performance, and turnover). ^ A number of interesting results stemmed from the 213 separate meta-analyses that were conducted. First, the evidence did not indicate that all of the subdimensions for each respective dimension were positively correlated. Specifically, there was not enough evidence to indicate that continuance organizational commitment was positively correlated with its other organizational commitment subdimensions. Future research might consider revamping the work commitment taxonomy so that all subdimensions that fall within a particular dimension are interrelated. It might be appropriate, therefore, to drop continuance organizational commitment from the work commitment taxonomy. Second, while most of the respective dimensions were interrelated, this was not the case across the board. For instance, there was no evidence of a significant positive relationship between organizational commitment and union commitment. In fact, the only significant relationship was negative between organizational commitment and belief in unionism. Further, there was no evidence of a positive relationship between union commitment and either work ethic endorsement or job involvement, respectively. These findings supported Morrow's (1993) rationale for excluding union commitment from the work commitment taxonomy. ^

Building Global Labor Solidarity Today: Learning from the KMU of the Philippines

New labor movements are currently emerging across the Global South. This is happening in countries as disparate as China, Egypt, and Iran. New developments are taking place within labor movements in places such as Colombia, Indonesia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan and Venezuela. Activists and leaders in these labor movements are seeking information from workers and unions around the world. However, many labor activists today know little or nothing about the last period of intense efforts to build international labor solidarity, the years 1978-2007. One of the key labor movements of this period, and which continues today, is the KMU Labor Center of the Philippines. It is this author’s contention that there is a lot unknown about the KMU that would help advance global labor solidarity today. This paper focuses specifically on the KMU’s development, and shares five things that have emerged from this author’s study of the KMU: a new type of trade unionism, new union organizations, an emphasis on rank and file education, building relations with sectoral organizations, and the need to build international labor solidarity.