ILPC 2026

After many years of enthusiastic discussions on “trade union revitalization”,the trade union studies  in Argentina appear to have lost their initial optimism.

Since 2013 salaries have frankly declined, especially during the years 2014 and 2016, notwithstanding they were election years. Both in the public and private sector job loss due to companies closing and layoffs has interrupted the working life, even for senior staff. Thus, the ghost of unemployment has become the hard reality. Working conditions turned overwhelming and job related diseases and accidents have been growing increasingly. Companies demand that non-wage labor costs be lowered in order to invest, and in order to achieve that a Labor Reform is being put together, emulating its Brazilian eponymous. This is intended to be implemented, either as a framework law, or in collective agreements, as was exemplified by the intents in VacaMuerta and Renault-Nissan. Which is the workers response to this offensive?

A “situation analysis” that allows us to survey the force correlations demands that attention be paid both to the sectorial struggles and to the intra-union relationships. When studying sectorial demands an effort must be made in order to characterize and systematize the defensive strategies against simultaneous attacks to the source of employment, salaries and working conditions; at the same time, situations that promote or discourage articulation point to the fragmentation and disorganization of the class, a further reaching and longer duration process. Both problems are traversed by the relationships between base and leaders. Here we encounter nuances that oscillate between certain porosities and the support of the conduction to the workers’ claims, and the open confrontation concerning workers and union leaders. It also seems a good time to discuss if the discredit idea of union bureaucracy has still a say in the context of classical leadership decomposition and the need of reevaluating union action in the workplace.

This symposium is organized by Labor Dispute Observatories from the inland regions of Argentina, which analyze labor struggles both in a quantitative and a qualitative manner, in contexts that aim to discuss common tendencies and regional and sectorial specificities. In this sense, we propose a comparative approach based on the analysis of the Labor Dispute Observatories from Córdoba, Mar del Plata and Mendoza. Some methodological problems that allow the discussion of comparative possibilities of the measuring tools will be also a topic of this encounter. Our perspective also implies that the acknowledgement of the experiences that indicate the different modes of political subjectivation, thus this panel will be made up of academics, but also of activists who participated in recent struggles. The participants of this symposium will be Patricia Collado, from the Labor Dispute Observatory in the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo; Susana Roitman from the Labor Dispute Observatory in Córdoba; Erica Oliva, TAMSE Trolebuses (Trolleybuses) Córdoba delegate and Agustín Nieto from the Labor Dispute Observatory in Mar del Plata