ILPC 2026

In this work we recover the concept of strategic position and its relation with bargaining power (Womack, 2007; Silver, 2003) to reflect on the political orientation assumed by the union strategies in the workplace.  To this aim, we will study two cases of important unions from the automotive sector in Argentina and Brazil: Sindicato de Mecánicos y Afines del Transporte Automotor (SMATA) and Sindicato dos Metalúrgicos do ABC (SM ABC). From the analysis of trade union and companies documents and semi-structured interviews to union leaders and delegates, workers and Ministry of Labor officers, we will study the collective bargaining dynamics and their relation to the characteristics of labour conflict in an American-owned automotive terminal with subsidiaries in the aforementioned countries between 2003 and 2014.

We use the concept of strategic position as an attribute of the workers who, as owners of their workforce, from an industrial or technically strategic position, can trigger (or prevent) an interruption in the production process, which confers them bargaining power. This perspective counterpoints with the dominant approaches which, anchored in institutionalist perspectives, tended to analyze the union power in relation to elements such as the economical and political juncture and the relation between the unions and the political party running the government.

Our main hypothesis states that the possibilities for organization and resistance in the industrial workplace are limited by the private property of the means of production. On this basis, the companies deploy different control mechanisms while the State establishes forms of regulation that impact on the dynamics of labor conflict, in which it highlights the forms adopted by the collective bargaining. Nevertheless, the control of capital over labor involves a process of struggle by the workers who daily and more or less explicitly manifest the conflict of interests between the classes (Hyman, 1981). In this picture, the role played by the unions is crucial. Through the forms of organization in the workplace and the political-ideological orientation of their action they may add tension or, on the contrary, validate the power of capital –which is presumed hegemonic- in the industrial workplace.

The deep study of the SMATA and SM ABC cases confirms that between 2003 and 2014 the workers of the automotive industry in Argentina and Brazil kept a strategic position and established themselves as strong actors facing the capital and the State. However, each trade union developed unique strategies: SMATA’s legitimacy was based on a profound disciplining and restraint of the labor conflict, while in the case of SM ABC it came from the workers organization in the workplace without discarding the confrontation with capital. Such differences refer to the political-ideological orientation of the trade union’s actions among which it highlights the role played by union leaders and delegates.