ILPC 2026

This paper analyses the transformation in the labour process in the Fiat Cordoba factories in relation to the experience of trade union organisation and struggle and repression carried out against workers in Fiat factories in Ferreyra(Cordoba) between the years 1974 and 1976. The province of Cordoba and its capital city constituted the epicentre of workers and trade union since the 1960s and was characterised by the emergence of combative unions.

Workers´activisim grew in relation to the expansion of industrial production towards the end of the 1950s. Cordoba province was particular dynamic in the metallurgic and automobile sectors. The workers´and students´ uprisings known as the Cordobazo in 1969 and in Viborazo in 1971 are key chapters in Argentine political history. So too repression of combative unions in the province was increasingly intense from 1974 onwards and became even more acute after the coup of 24th march 1976.

There are numerous investigations in social sciences and historiography that analyse the industrial process, the conflictivity between capital and labour and the repression carried against workers. However there are a few investigations into these issues during the dictatorship of 1976-1983. So too, the majority of that body of work has focused on analysing the repression dealt out by the Armed Forces, omitting the role played by companies. In this sense, following on from the "Report: Corporate Responsability in Crimes Against Humanity, Repression of Workers during the State Terrorism", we propose to analyse the company as one more actor within the repressive apparatus and also investigate the different formsin which the company´s responsability in the repression of workers appeared.

The methodology is based on analysis of various documents and dossiers from archives and oral history. The Cordoba Provincial Memory Archive and National Memory Archive have been crucial to broach the deployment of state terrorism as well as the social and institutional response to state violence. The process of growing conflictivity between the company and workers was identified by exploring archives at the National Ministry of Labour,the digital archive of SITRAC Union,interviews and local media. Audiovisual material found in the University of Cordoba Film Archive were consulted and the testimonies made in court during the trials for crimes against humanity found in the "Trial Diary" produced by H.I.J.O.S Cordoba was also used. Other documentary sources that provided valuable information to observe the process of production and labour in the company as the reference material at the CISEA-CESPA in the Economics Faculty (University of Buenos Aires) and the magazine published by the company itself, Nosotros ("Us").