We can’t have a free market
economy which functions well
without a compatible scheme for
labor.
Labor Minister Jose Pinero,
architect of Chile’s new Labor Code
The aim of the Labor Code is to
divide and conquer … the status
quo only protects the capital of
certain ‘gentlemen,’ not the work-
ers … if I speak out about my pro-
blems I’ll be taken off to jail.
a worker at CORESA
refrigerator plant
More than six years after the
military coup, it has become com-
monplace to talk both about the
junta’s aim of institutionalizing its
regime and about the gradual but
sustained reactivation of the mass
movement. A key link in both pro-
cesses, and a point at which they
are in increasingly open conflict, is
the labor movement.
Over the past year, the junta
has announced a number of De-
cree Laws which, together with
the July 1979 Labor Code, are pro-
minent features of the jun-
ta’s-and big business’s-plans
for a “new economic model” in
Chile.
National labor confederations
and industry-wide unions have
been outlawed or emasculated.
Union leaders have been harass-
ed and blacklisted and fraudulent
elections held to replace them.
The right to strike, though legalized
for the first time since the coup,
has been gutted. Strikes are
36
limited to wage demands, ex-
cluding such previously hard-
fought issues as job security,
health and safety, maternity leaves
or social security. Their duration is
limited to 60 days, after which
striking workers are considered to
have “voluntarily resigned.” Public
meetings or pickets are outlawed,
as is any support from other
unions. Employer lockouts, on the
other hand, have been legalized,
and scabs may be freely hired.
Even such weaponless strikes as
this are prohibited in “strategic
sectors” of the economy, such as
mining and construction. And, to
top it off, the government may pro-
hibit any strike for reasons of “na-
tional security.”
The Chilean government has
presented the Labor Code, im-
mediately tagged the “bosses’
code” by Chilean workers, as
evidence of their good faith and
fairness. Recently, in a special
advertising supplement to the New
York Times, the Labor Code was
described as “a modern creative
response to the needs of our time
and circumstances … designed
to create in Chile a new set of
labor institutions, with union
organizations removed from
political party tutelage which, in
the past, did so much harm to the
Chilean labor movement.” Un-
doubtedly, it was this concern
which led the government to ex-
clude as a candidate for union of-
fice during the sham elections
held last year anyone who had
been a known member of a
political party in the past ten years.
After the enactment of the
Labor Code, the Inter-American
Regional Workers’ Organization
(ORIT) and the AFL-CIO agreed to
suspend a threatened boycott,
arguing that the Labor Code ac-
tually represented a step forward
in relation to existing violations of
labor rights-which had originally
motivated the threat of interna-
tional sanctions-by providing a
definite legal framework for the
few remaining trade union rights.
Overstepping the Limits
Despite the obstacles
presented by reactionary legisla-
tion and the fierce attacks endured
over the past half-dozen years,
workers have regrouped and
reorganized their unions at local
and national levels. The past year
has seen increasing numbers of
strikes and other labor protest ac-
tions which, in many cases, have
gone beyond the narrow bounds of
the junta’s Decree Laws. Seven
national labor confederations con-
tinue to exist and function despite
harassment and persecution, the
dissolution of some as “legal en-
tities” by government decree and
the firing and arrests of union
leaders. Included among these are
the CNS (National Trade Union
Coordinating Body), FUT
(Workers’ Unity Front), CEPCH
(Private Employees Union), the so-
called “Group of Ten” (Christian
Democrat labor leaders) and UN-
TRACH (National Employees
Union of Chile).
However, most of the increas-
ing militancy in the workers’ move-
ment over the past year has come
from the rank-and-file level. The
national confederations are
hampered by restrictive legislation
which seeks to limit them to little
NACLA Reportupdate * update . update . update
more than mutual aid societies.
They are divided along industrial
and craft lines, and plagued with
problems of bureaucracy. At the
same time, there are sometimes
sharp differences over strategy
and tactics within and among the
confederations, particularly in
those where union leaders sym-
pathetic to the 1973 coup still
maintain influence. An example of
the latter is Guillermo Medina, a
leader in the copper workers’
union at El Teniente, who was
characterized by the workers as a
“chameleon” because he shifted
so frequently between defending
the union and the bosses’ interest.
Critical Demands
The most urgent issues con-
fronted by the workers in their ac-
tions are job security, protection
against the rapidly rising cost of
living, and the fight to preserve
basic benefits such as overtime,
paid vacations, productivity
bonuses, maternity and sick leave,
and retirement benefits, all of
which are under attack by the
government as part of a
systematic “give-back” policy.
‘.4
Workers at the Chuquicamata copper mine
MayiJune 1980
Job security is a key issue. Of-
ficial unemployment figures have
been running at 12-16% since
1975, with at least another 3%
disguised unemployment hidden
by the Minimum Employment Pro-
gram (PEM) which pays about $10
a week. Recently, there has been
a wave of layoffs and firings. For
example, at Lirquen Plate Glass
Factory, 182 out of 305 workers
were fired and production cut by
2/3, only to be restored to 2/3
capacity without rehiring fired
workers. At CORESA refrigerator
factory, the entire workforce of
210 was laid off after a 59 day
strike, when the owners announc-
ed they were temporarily closing
the plant. The workers have de-
nounced plans to reopen the plant
“under new management” by the
same financial group that owns it.
In other cases, PEM workers have
been used to break strikes.
Although the junta’s Labor Code
boasts of guaranteed cost-of-living
increases, such “automatic”
raises are based on the official
Consumer Price Index which
grossly underestimates inflation.
Besides, the adjustments are
granted with considerable delay.
The junta’s munificent
“guarantee” to maintain current
wage levels takes on additional
significance when one recalls that
real wages have already fallen by
almost 50% from their highest
level under Allende since the junta
took power.
Strikes and other job actions
are beginning to push beyond the
narrow limits of the Labor Code.
When 600 workers at Goodyear
went out on strike late last year,
they organized a peaceful march
to the Labor Ministry, the first such
mass public labor protest since
the coup. The workers at
Goodyear also illegally joined
37update * update . update update
forces with 75 striking women
from the nearby Salome Bakery to
organize “ollas comunes”,
solidarity soup kitchens to keep
the strikers going.
Miniscule Gains
Such actions have inevitably led
to new reprisals by employers and
repression by the government. A
second march by Goodyear strik-
ers and their supporters was
broken up and union leaders ar-
rested. In many cases, strike
leaders have been fired after a
dispute is settled, sometimes
leading to renewed worker pro-
tests, as happened in 1978 at Chu-
quicamata copper mine. At
Goodyear, 80 workers were fired
following the strike settlement; at
Panal Textiles, 100 were fired and
a number of union activists were
also fired from El Teniente follow-
ing the settlement there.
Union leaders and rank-and-file
activists have had to face the fact
that many of the recent strikes and
labor protests have won few if any
of their demands. At Goodyear,
after 17 days the workers who had
asked for a 30% increase settled
for 6.4%. At El Teniente, the initial
demand for a 55% increase was
beaten down to a 9% settlement.
Some workers fared even worse.
At La Scala Textiles, 119 strikers,
most of them women, were forced
to return after 23 days on strike
with only a 1.5% raise; 10 were
subsequently fired. At Condor
Tiles, the workers were forced to
return after 57 days having won
none of their demands. And at
CORESA, as previously men-
tioned, the workers not only went
back with no gains after 59 days,
all 210 were subsequently laid off.
Commenting on the result of the
strike at Condor Tiles, union presi-
dent Hector Morales stated bitter-
ly: “This strike only served to
prove that the Labor Code is a
failure from the point of view of the
workers, favoring only the
bosses.”
Those sectors best prepared to
win a strike-larger plants in
strategic sectors with skilled
workers where a strike could not
so easily be sustained by the
owners or broken by scabs-are
precisely the sectors where strikes
are forbidden by law: mining,
transportation, communications,
construction and basic industry.
In the face of this situation, union
organizers, rank-and-file activists
and militant workers have had to
combat defeatism, demoralization
and resignation. Yet the very fact
that so many strikes and protest
actions have taken place over the
past year despite all obstacles is a
measure of the growing strength
of the workers movement. Crucial
to their capacity to grow will be
their ability to develop creative
new forms of organization and
struggle, forms which decisively
transcend the legal strictures im-
posed by the junta. For such steps
to become a reality it will be
necessary to link immediate
economic demands with broader
social and political demands of the
entire Chilean people, and to im-
prove its level of coordination and
united action.
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