Collective bargaining and union strategies in contemporary Argentina

MARTICORENA, CLARA

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; 36th International Labour Process Conference; 2018

CEIL-CONICET, IIGG, UBA Sociales

The aim of this paper is to discuss the relevance that the dynamics of collective bargaining has in the explanation of the characteristics of union organization and labor conflict in contemporary Argentina, centrally during kirchnerists governments (2003-2015). We approach to this goal through the critical review of main studies on labor relations and the analysis of our research results about collective bargaining in manufacturing industry. Our main sources are data bases of collective bargaining and labor conflict, collective agreements and interviews to union?s leaders and delegates, HR managers and businessmen, and state officials of labor relations area.Despite the importance that collective bargaining has had in the traditional field of Industrial Relations studies, in Argentina this issue hasn?t been deeply studied and problematized. On one hand, that could be a consequence of the interrupted history of collective bargaining in our country, but, also, on the other hand, it could be the result of the predominance of the institutionalist approach as the main theoretical perspective in this field of studies. In contrast, conceptualizing collective bargaining as a form of class struggle institutionalization allows us to establish a broader view about working conditions and union organization. During the period 2003-2015, collective bargaining and labor conflict have acquired a significant importance in the dynamics of labor relations in Argentina. For many authors, this implies a sign of revitalization in union?s strategies and increasing union power. For others, the quantitative evolution of labor conflict and collective bargaining coverage isn?t enough to set the development of a new union revitalization process. Critical authors highlight the importance of qualitative research approaches to study labor relations in different cases or economic sectors. However, qualitative analyses usually don?t take into account the link between labor conflicts and the institutionalized forms of labor relations, in particular collective bargaining processes, as a key dimension to understand the development of union strategies.Furthermore, researchers on labor conflict usually study the link with trade union organization, including the dynamics of bases and union's leaders, but scholars on collective bargaining, have paid less attention to its relationship with union organization building processes. In this point, we aim to underline the relevance of collective bargaining not only to assess the ways and characteristics of union revitalization strategies, but also to study the processes of union organization. Our hypothesis sets that this dimension has particular importance to understand both the union's leaders strategies and grassroots workers organization, and to explain the grown of workplace organization at the first decade of s. XXI in Argentina. The configuration of union strategies around bargaining processes and the importance it acquired as a way to regulate-institutionalize labor conflicts in the everyday workplace organization extend the study of grassroots organization beyond radical or left unionism. Finally, we aim to discuss if can be defined the development of different temporalities in grassroots organization during the studied period.