?To manage the firm, to be an employer? It is just an illusion? Neoliberal Hegemony and Labor Precarity in a ?Petty? Steel Workers? Firm in Argentina

JULIA SOUL

Trajectories of Precariousness. Ethnographic Approaches

Gutenberg

Lugar: Atenas; Año: 2021; p. 239 - 263

In this article, I aim to discuss the relationship between the commodification of labor spurred within the neoliberal hegemony and the working class disorganization/reorganization dynamic in Argentina, pointing to the experience of increasing of precariousness and uncertainty as a key dimension of disappointment with neoliberal hegemony. I do this through a medium-term ethnographic study of a group of steel workers from San Nicolás de los Arroyos, the city where SOMISA, Argentina?s formerly state-owned steel mill, privatized in 1992, was located. The privatization process is a historical landmark in workers? experience, for since then labor and community relationships have been profoundly transformed. New owners introduced a restructuring process, which set lasting differences among workers, establishing the basis for a broad array of contractual relationships. One of the most interesting configurations that emerged from the proliferation of contractual work are the ?micro-firms?, a multiplicity of small firms formed on the basis of former productive sections and workers within a company.