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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Chile
Index
For many decades, Chile had one of the most extensive
labor
movements in the Western Hemisphere. Large increases in
unionization through the 1960s occurred in response to
efforts by
the authorities to organize working-class groups. Intense
competition between the Christian Democrats and the left
added
further to the extraordinary efforts to mobilize
previously
disenfranchised groups in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Under center-left administrations, Chile's workers
obtained an
array of workers' rights and established a collective
bargaining
system in which the state played a significant role as
mediator.
During the Popular Unity years, unions closely tied to the
parties
of the left played important roles in the management of
enterprises
taken over by the state. However, Chile's organized
workers hardly
constituted the revolutionary vanguard envisioned by some
sectors
of the far left. They were proud of their "conquests" and
envisioned the policies of the Allende government as a
continuation
of favorable treatment for workers. Despite the size of
Chile's
labor movement, labor had little autonomy from party
leadership.
Most labor demands, outside of particular collective
bargaining
situations, responded to the strategies and calculations
of party
leaders both in and out of the government.
When the coup came, despite the rhetoric of the far
left there
was no independent working-class movement capable of
resisting the
imposition of military rule. With the arrest of labor and
party
leaders, any possibility of resistance vanished. The
military
regime was extremely harsh on organized labor because of
its close
ties to the parties of the left. The principal labor
federation,
the United Labor Federation (Central Única de
Trabajadores), was
disbanded and many of its leaders were killed, imprisoned,
or
exiled. The authorities adopted a new labor code, which
prohibited
labor federations, sharply restricted the right to strike,
and gave
significant latitude to employers in the hiring and firing
of
workers and in procedures for settling disputes.
Structural changes in the Chilean economy, particularly
the
collapse of large traditional industries that had depended
on state
subsidies and tariff protection, combined with the highest
levels
of urban unemployment in Latin America during the 1980s,
also
exacted a harsh toll on the labor movement. By the
mid-1980s, the
number of unionized workers was only one-third of its
highest
level, while the growing numbers of women in the labor
force,
particularly in commercial agriculture, remained
nonunionized. By
1987 only about 10 percent of the total work force was
unionized;
approximately 20 percent of industrial labor belonged to
unions.
Only in select areas, such as copper mining, where 60
percent of
the workers were unionized, was the union movement able to
hold its
own.
Despite organized labor's decline, when the military
authorities attempted to develop an alternative labor
movement with
a "renewed" leadership to their liking, they failed. Even
in
government-mandated elections for new union leaders at the
plant
level, workers tended to select union members who were
hostile to
the government and had close ties to opposition parties.
It was
this "tolerated" labor movement, spearheaded by the
Confederation
of Copper Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores del
Cobre--CTC),
that ignited the widespread protests and strikes of 1983
coordinated by the National Workers' Command (Comando
Nacional de
Trabajadores--CNT). Less militant was the centrist
(pro-PDC)
Workers' Democratic Federation (Central Democrática de
Trabajadores--CDT). The government moved swiftly, however,
to curb
all labor activism through repressive measures and threats
to fire
workers, particularly in the copper mines. Party leaders
soon
replaced labor leaders as the principal organizers of the
growing
opposition to the military government.
In the early 1990s, the principal labor confederation
in Chile
was the Unitary Confederation of Labor (Confederación
Única de
Trabajadores--CUT), established in 1988 as the successor
to the
National Trade Union Coordinating Board (Coordinadora
Nacional de
Sindicatos--CNS), a grouping of industrial, professional,
and
mining unions led by leftist Christian Democrats and
elements of
the left. With the return of democracy, labor pressed for
a more
favorable labor code and for social policies that would
improve
poor people's standard of living. Although the Aylwin
government
was constrained in approving new labor legislation by the
opposition majority in the Senate, some modifications were
made to
the labor code. The strong climate of opinion in the
country in
favor of free markets and minimal government restrictions
on labor
markets, a position embraced by the Aylwin government, has
hemmed
in labor's room for maneuvering.
The weakness of the labor movement reflected not only
the low
incidence of organized labor in Chile's new economic
context but
also the degree to which labor continued to be controlled
by
Chile's principal parties, parties that were able to exert
substantial "labor discipline" during Aylwin's
transitional
government. There were indications, however, that this
discipline
may have been obtained at a cost. There appeared to be
dissatisfaction among rank-and-file workers with the close
relationship between union and party leaders and some
bitterness
about the low priority the government accorded their
interests,
despite government success in changing some of the labor
laws
(see Unions and
Labor Conflicts
, ch. 3).
Data as of March 1994
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