Labor Wars in Cordoba, 1955-1976

Cordoba is Argentina's second-largest city, a university town that became the centre of its automobile industry. In the decade following the overthrow of Juan Peron's government in 1955, the city experienced rapid industrial growth. The arrival of IKA-Renault and Fiat fostered a particular kind of industrial development and created a new industrial worker of predominantly rural origins. Former farm boys and small-town dwellers were thrust suddenly into the world of the modern factory and the multinational corporation. The domination of the local economy by a single industry and the prominent role played by the automobile workers' unions brought about the greatest working-class protest in postwar Latin American history, the 1969 Cordobazo. These labour wars have been mythologized as a Latin American equivalent to the French student strikes of May-June 1968 and the Italian "hot summer" of the same period. Analyzing these events in the context of recent debates on Latin American working-class politics, Brennan demonstrates that the pronounced militancy and even political radicalism of the Cordoban working class were due not only to Argentina's changing political culture but also to the dynamic relationship between the factory and society during those years. Brennan draws on corporate archives in Argentina, France and Italy, as well as previously unknown union archives. Readers interested in Latin American studies, labour history, industrial relations, political science, industrial sociology, and international business should all find value in this analysis of labour politics.