May Day and Argentine Workers' Struggle
Submitted on Wed, 06/29/2005 - 2:37am
By Marie Trigona--Grupo alavio, Buenos Aires - Industrial Worker, June 2005
"Fighting for a 6-hour work day is similar to the struggle for the 8-hour work day," said subway delegate Roberto Pianelli. "Today, the working class doesn' t have time for rest, leisure activities, or for their lives. The economic system has transformed us into working beasts. The average working day for Argentines is 10 hours. This has resulted in a unified struggle among active workers and unemployed, fighting together against capitalism and super-exploitation."
Subway workers who have been organizing wildcat strikes for salary increases have spearheaded Argentina' s movement for a six-hour work day. In 2003, subway workers (in all sectors from ticket office to train drivers) won a six-hour day. Metrovias, the private corporation contracted to take over the once state-run subway lines in Buenos Aires, has had to respect the 6-hour work day, improve working conditions and salaries, and address gender inequality. Since this victory, subway workers, other workers, economists and unemployed organizations have formed a movement for a 6-hour work day for all, with increased salaries. In addition, Metrovias employees (organized outside of the official UTA transport workers' union) held week-long wildcat strikes in February and won a 44 percent wage hike.
In interviews, several subway delegates reflected on the relationship between the struggle for a six-hour work day and the fight of the Haymarket Martyrs of Chicago, the personal significance of May Day and anarchist traditions in Argentina. I caught a few delegates after their weekly delegate meeting at Hotel Bauen, a hotel recuperated by its workers. Each line has two delegates. There are commissions for press work and gender. There are over 3,000 workers at Metrovias, who work three shifts, making it almost impossible to hold general assemblies except during strikes. In general, decisions are made during assemblies organized by line or shifts. The workers hold democratic decision making inside the delegates union as a fundamental principle.
Walter Varela, delegate from the subway' s D line idealized the struggle for an 8-hour work day. "The Martyrs of Chicago set an example of struggle... What we want to do is to create a movement for a 6-hour work day. It would be useful for Argentina because it would create 4 million new jobs and better salaries for all workers, but our struggle doesn' t compare to the struggle of the martyrs of Chicago," said Varela.
He added, "I couldn' t tell you if there are workers more exploited than at the beginning of the century. In that period, work days were really long, just as they are today. If we look at the parallels between the struggle of the anarchists and today, we see that the labor standards have become more flexible. Today, workers are standing up against the trade unions and are creating a syndicalist movement made up of struggling workers. I see May Day as a day to recover the historical fight of workers and to continue with that fight. The struggle of the workers in Chicago, which ended with a terrible murder of eight workers who wanted to put in place an idea is celebrated on May Day, but it isn' t a party. This is the difference we want to make."
Today unemployment stands at 19.5% and underemployment 15.7%, which means 35.2% of workers (approximately 5.2 million) have serious job problems. Businesses take advantage of the desperation of the millions of unemployed – increasing work shifts, allowing work conditions to deteriorate, paying under the table, and lowering salaries to a humiliating subsistence. The average salary is 600 pesos (around $200) and the poverty line is 720 pesos. Inflation is increasing rapidly, it' s expected that 2005 inflation will reach 20%. Wages have been frozen since the early ' 90s, not readjusted after the peso devaluation in 2001 which devalued salaries to a third of their former value.
This has made the situation unbearable, and many sectors have held actions (strikes, occupying buildings and recuperating bankrupt businesses). May Day 2005 arrived in the midst of hospital workers, airline workers and teachers' labor conflicts. Many other slogans reminiscent of the Haymarket anarchists were heard during this year' s May Day: freedom for all political prisoners and defense of worker-controlled and occupied enterprises.
Jorge Mendez is a young worker. After the subway was privatized, Metrovias cut back personnel and hired mostly young workers. This year was the first time Mendez spoke on a platform, he said that this May Day was a moving experience. Not only because he spoke, but because workers could mark their own path without being blocked by the traditional left. Workers are proving they can set their own dynamic of struggle without Marxist/Trotskyist parties and electoral platforms. He said syndicalist methods of democratic organizing, workers funds and direct action methods such as the strike, sabotage and collectivization were an inspiration.
"Capitalism has evolved to always fix itself and to continue exploiting the workers. We are organizing so that our fight is similar to the struggles of the workers who died for an 8-hour work day. We want to recover May Day as a day of struggle. Today, when there is so much unemployment we are convinced that our struggle in the subways for a 6-hour work day can be a solution for the millions of unemployed in Argentina," said Mendez.
In 1909 the anarchists organized a May Day demonstration in Buenos Aires, in Plaza Lorea. Police attacked the rally and killed eight people. Chief of police Colonel Falcon ordered the brutal repression. Simon Radowitzky, a 19-year-old immigrant from Russia, made history when he killed Colonel Falcon. He was present at the May Day demonstration and watched the death of his comrades. A week after the repression, Radowitzky threw a packaged bomb into the Falcon' s carriage. He spent the next 21 years of his life in prison.
In April, subway workers staged a strike in solidarity with airline workers against the government' s decision to sell the state-run airline LAFSA to LAN Chile. Police attacked a workers' assembly at Jorge Newberry metropolitan airport April 19, shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at workers. Twenty demonstrators were injured. Subway staff immediately announced they would stage surprise strikes in solidarity with LAFSA employees.
Subway workers have pledged to use strikes as a direct action against state repression of labor conflicts. In recent months, with a crackdown on worker-controlled ceramics factory Zanon, subway workers have promised that if the factory is evicted there will be a price to pay in Buenos Aires subway lines. During the May Day action this year many workers from different labor conflicts spoke of mutual solidarity and support as fundamental objectives of struggle.
Pianelli reflected on the importance of this year' s demonstration. "This May Day was really important because in this year a ton of struggles and conflicts emerged. We staged a huge action, led by workers' organizations, without the participation of the traditional leftist political parties as part of a vanguard of workers in struggle. This is why we did an act in Plaza Lorea."
He added, "The working class has inherited slogans from anarchists at the beginning of the century such as struggle for political prisoners and organizing working class unions. For me it' s important to recuperate the ethic, actions and democratic organization from the anarchists. The anarchists' actions at the beginning of the century to raise a working class subjectivity and to take in their own hands their destiny have been lost in the past decades of Argentine history. Many sectors of the left try to defame anyone (activists/workers) who acts differently from their electoral objectives, any who dissent (a practice from Stalinism). Workers need to recover the best traditions from anarchism – self determination, respect for dissidence and creating a new working class subjectivity."
Since the mid-1990s, with swelling unemployment, the road blockade became the central tactic of the piquetero movement. Without access to the factory and the ability to strike, sabotage machinery and occupy factories, unemployed workers sought out a new practice for struggle – the blockade, a method to prevent merchandise from arriving to the market. In the past few years, active workers gained ground in terms of accessing the work place to pressure owners and bosses for better wages and working conditions. The dynamic of workers' struggle has changed and strengthened in search of new victories.
Mendez summed up this new dynamic. "Today I think that it' s us, the employed workers, who have to fight so all of the compañeros, who were excluded from the system, can be reinserted into the labor market with better conditions and salaries. We think that we have the possibility to unite all of the struggles." Grupo Alavío is a direct action and video collective that produced a documentary about the struggle for the 6-hour work day. alavio.org. Another new documentary, "The Take," explores the occupations.