Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T09:03:33.811Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Worker Power, Trade Union Strategy, and International Connections: Dockworker Unionism in Colombia and Chile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2019

Katy Fox-Hodess
Katy Fox-Hodess*
Affiliation:
Katy Fox-Hodess is a lecturer in employment relations at the University of Sheffield.
*
Katy.Fox-Hodess@sheffield.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article analyzes the constitution of dockworkers’ power and its impact on trade union strategy in recent labor disputes in Chile and Colombia. Dockworkers’ strategic location in the economies of both countries would predict a high degree of shop-floor power among both groups. In practice, however, Colombian dock-workers had far less shop-floor power than their Chilean counterparts, as a result of mitigating social and political factors. Consequently, they developed a strategy this study terms human rights unionism, relying on external allies and lawsuits for leverage, rather than shop-floor action. Dockworkers in Chile, by contrast, adopted a strategy termed class struggle unionism, relying on nationally and internationally coordinated shop-floor action. This article therefore proposes an expanded model of workers’ structural power, incorporating the roles of state and society to better account for power differentials and divergent strategic pathways among workers who share a common position in the economic system.

Keywords

worker powertrade union strategylabor internationalismChileColombia
Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 29 - 54
Copyright
© University of Miami 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almeida, Paul. 2008. Waves of Protest: Popular Struggles in El Salvador, 1925–2005. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Anner, Mark S. 2011. Solidarity Transformed: Labor Responses to Globalization and Crisis in Latin America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Aricapa, Ricardo. 2006. Las cooperativas de trabajo asociado en el Puerto de Buenaventura: caos y degradación laboral. Working Paper 59. Medellín: Escuela Nacional Sindical. http://www.ens.org.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DOCUMENTOS-DE-LA-ESCUELA_59-Las-CTA-en-el-Puerto-de-Buenaventura.pdfGoogle Scholar
Bacon, David. 2014. Colombia: Where Dockers Sell Their Paycheques for Loans. Equal Times: News at Work. April 22.Google Scholar
Bank Muñoz, Carolina. 2017. Building Power from Below: Chilean Workers Take on Walmart. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bensusan, Graciela. 2016. Organizing Workers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico: The Authoritarian-Corporatist Legacy and Old Institutional Designs in a New Context. Theoretical Inquiries in Law 17, 1: 131–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergquist, Charles. 1986. Labor in Latin America: Comparative Essays on Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bonacich, Edna, and Wilson, Jake B.. 2008. Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Carmichael, Leah L., and Andrew, Herod. 2012. Dockers and Seafarers: What the Politics of Spatial Embeddedness and Geographical Scale Have Meant for Union Organizing in the European Maritime Trades. Labor Studies Journal 37, 2: 203–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica. 2015. Buenaventura: Un Puerto sin comunidad. Bogotá.Google Scholar
Díaz, Gonzalo, and Camilo, Santibáñez. 2014. Los trabajadores portuarios y las nuevas-viejas prácticas del empresariado. Resumen. https://resumen.cl/articulos/los-trabajadores-por-tuarios-y-las-nuevas-viejas-practicas-del-empresariadoGoogle Scholar
Ebenau, Matthias. 2012. Varieties of Capitalism or Dependency? A Critique of the VoC Approach for Latin America. Competition and Change 16, 3: 206–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Figueroa, Juan Pablo. 2014. La movida de la empresa de grupos Matte y Angelini que hizo caer a líder sindical portuario. Reportajes de Investigación, November 27. Santiago: Centro de Investigación Periodística.Google Scholar
Fox-Hodess, Katy. 2017. (Re)Locating the Local and National in the Global: Multi-Scalar Political Alignment in European Dockworker Union Campaigns. British Journal of Industrial Relations 55, 3: 626–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frege, Carola, and John, Kelly. 2004. Conclusions: Varieties of Unionism. In Varieties of Unionism: Strategies for Union Revitalization in a Globalizing Economy, ed. Frege, and Kelly, . Oxford: Oxford University Press. 182–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaudichaud, Franck. 2015. Unión Portuaria acusa: reforma laboral atenta contra el sindica- lismo. Punto Final, April 3: 825.Google Scholar
Gentile, Antonina. 2010. Historical Varieties of Labor Contention and Hegemony in Transnational Docker Campaigns. Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University.Google Scholar
Gill, Lesley. 2016. A Century of Violence in a Red City: Popular Struggle, Counterinsurgency, and Human Rights in Colombia. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamann, Kerstin, and John, Kelly. 2008. Varieties of Capitalism and Industrial Relations. In The Sage Handbook of Industrial Relations, ed. Paul, Blyton, Nicolas, Bacon, Jack, Fior-ito, and Edmund, Heery. Thousand Oaks: Sage. 129–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamburg, Süd. n.d. Welcome to Our Regional Information from Colombia. https://www.hamburgsudline.com/liner/en/liner_services/country_information/colombia_new/index.htmlGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, Daniel. 2013. The Formalization and Unionization Campaign in the Buenaventura Port, Colombia. Working Paper. School of Labor and Employment, Pennsylvania State University. August 20.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Daniel. 2017. Port Workers in Colombia: Reinstatement as Formal Workers. In Informal Workers and Collective Action: A Global Perspective, ed. Eaton, Adrienne E., Schurman, Susan J., and Chen, Martha A.. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 21–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heritage Foundation. 2019. 2019 Index of Economic Freedom. 25th anniversary ed. Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation. https://www.heritage.org/index/pdf/2019/book/index_2019.pdfGoogle Scholar
Herod, Andrew. 1997. Labor’s Spatial Praxis and the Geography of Contract Bargaining in the U.S. East Coast Longshore Industry, 1953—89. Political Geography 16, 2: 145–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyes, Jason, Paul, Lewis, and Ian, Clark. 2012. Varieties of Capitalism, Neoliberalism and the Economic Crisis of 2008—? Industrial Relations Journal 43, 3: 222—41. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2338.2012.00669.xGoogle Scholar
Howell, Chris. 2003. Varieties of Capitalism: And Then There Was One? Comparative Politics 36, 1: 103–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Dockworkers Council (IDC). 2013. Puerto Angamos paralizado por demandas sindicales. March 26. http://www.idcdockworkers.org/es/noticias/129-puerto-ang-amos-paralizado-por-demandas-sindicalesGoogle Scholar
International Dockworkers Council (IDC). 2015. Portworkers Union of Colombia Signs Collective Bargaining Agreements with the Regional Portworkers Society of Buenaventura (SPRBUN) and the Specialized Container Terminal of Buenaventura (TECSA). July 10.Google Scholar
International Trade Union Confederation. 2018. Global Rights Index. Brussels: ITUC. https://www.ituc-csi.org/ituc-global-rights-index-2018Google Scholar
Jiménez, Pérez, Nayibe, , and Wilson, Delgado Moreno. 2008. La política pública de privatizatión del sector portuario y su impacto en la organizatión del trabajo en el puerto de Buenaventura. Pensamientoy Gestión no. 25: 178–213.Google Scholar
Kerr, Clark, and Abraham, Siegel. 1954. The Interindustry Propensity to Strike: An International Comparison. In Industrial Conflict, ed. Kornhauser, Arthur W., Dubin, Robert, and Ross, Arthur. New York: McGraw-Hill. 189–212.Google Scholar
Kimeldorf, Howard. 1988. Reds or Rackets: The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Manky, Omar. 2018. Resource Mobilisation and Precarious Workers’ Organisations: An Analysis of the Chilean Subcontracted Mineworkers’ Unions. Work, Employment and Society 32, 3: 581–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholls, Kelly, and Gimena, Sánchez-Garzoli. 2011. Buenaventura, Colombia: Where Free Trade Meets Mass Graves. NACLA Report on the Americas 44, 4: 4–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogalde, Rodrigo. 2013. Los trabajadores acordaron el fin del paro portuario en San Antonio. Soy Chile, April 16. https://www.soychile.cl/San-Antonio/Economia-y-Negocios/2013/04/16/168125/Los-trabajadores-acordaron-el-fin-del-paro-portuario-en-San-Antonio.aspxGoogle Scholar
Osorio, Sebastian. 2013. Reflexiones sobre la organización sindical del sector portuario desde la coyuntura en Mejillones. Centro de Investigatión Político Social del Trabajo, April 6. http://cipstra.cl/2013/reflexiones-sobre-la-organizacion-sindical-del-sector-portuario-desde-la-coyuntura-en-mejillones/Google Scholar
Palacios-Valladares, Indira. 2010. From Militancy to Clientelism: Labor Union Strategies and Membership Trajectories in Contemporary Chile. Latin American Politics and Society 52, 2: 73–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1977. Proletariat into a Class: The Process of Class Formation from Karl Kautsky’s The Class Struggle to Recent Controversies. Politics and Society 7, 4: 343–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quevedo, Nayareth. 2016. Trade Unions and Social Organizations Say “Chile Better Without TPPA.” Public Services International, February 10. http://world-psi.org/en/trade-unions-and-social-organizations-say-chile-better-without-tppaGoogle Scholar
Rochlin, James. 2011. Colombian Labor, Globalization and a Ray of Hope. Global Labour Journal 2, 3: 180–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santibáñez Rebolledo, Camilo. 2016. Posiciones estratégicas y fuerza obrera: apuntes en torno a un ciclo huelguístico de los estibadores del salitre (Chile 1916—1923). Izquierdas 30: 188–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoening, Max. 2014. The Crisis in Buenaventura: Disappearances, Dismemberment, and Displacement in Colombia’s Main Pacific Port. Human Rights Watch, March 20. https://www.hrw.orgGoogle Scholar
Silver, Beverly. 2003. Forces of Labor: Workers’ Movements and Globalization Since 1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stillerman, Joel. 2017. Explaining Strike Outcomes in Chile: Associational Power, Structural Power, and Spatial Strategies. Latin American Politics and Society 59, 1: 96–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Von Bülow, Marisa. 2009. Networks of Trade Protest in the Americas: Toward a New Labor Internationalism? Latin American Politics and Society 51, 2: 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winn, Peter, ed. 2004. Victims of the Chilean Miracle: Workers and Neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, 1973–2002. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Erik Olin. 2000. Working-Class Power, Capitalist-Class Interests, and Class Compromise. American Journal of Sociology 105, 4: 957–1002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar