ILPC 2026

 The neoliberal experiment in Argentina resulted in the deepest social and economic crisis in the history of the country. In terms of the industrial workplace, labor relations were shaped by rising unemployment, precarious and informal work in the framework of widespread flexibility agreements between companies and unions. After the disastrous crisis of 1998-2002, the country’s economy started to grow as prices for its major exports began to rise. In the context of rapid growth, the Kirchnterista government was able to raise taxes on agricultural exports, stimulate job creation by expanding the domestic market, and support collective bargaining agreements for established labor unions. In terms of the occupational structure, this pattern of economic growth increased the relative weight of salaried industrial workers within the total workforce. What type of labor regime was established in the industrial workplace in Argentina during this phase of economic recovery? What is the relationship between this regime and the larger political and economic dynamics of development in post-crisis Argentina?

The hypothesis that I defend in this paper is that the industrial workplace in Argentina during this period was regulated by a “precarious hegemonic regime” (Braga, 2011) based on a combination of rising employment and salaries with a persistent working class fragmentation. In particular, I analyze the micro-politics of this fragmentation as expressed in the implementation of temporary contracts and subcontracting arrangements in three industrial firms located in the industrial belt of the Northern Gran Buenos Aires between 2005 and 2011. In the first part of the paper I analyze different strategies that workplace unions developed in order to confront precarious work and identify the variables that might explain the variation in union strategies as well as the outcomes of the different campaigns, which include the type of factory regime, the organizing logic of the union and the structural power of precarious workers. The systematic comparison of the cases and a detailed discussion of these variables aim to explain the paradox of a labor regime that combined higher salaries and rising employment with persistent precarious work arrangements. In particular, it seems that the presence of a bureaucratic union at the workplace was a condition for the stability of the precarious hegemonic regime based on a fragmented industrial citizenship. In the workplace, bureaucratic unions developed a strategy of subordinated integration that tolerated the activism of precarious workers to get higher salaries but did not challenge precarious arrangements. On the other hand, grassroots left-oriented unions supported workers organizing drives against work precarity which questioned the structural basis of the precarious hegemonic regime.

In the second part of the paper, I explore the implications of these cases to understand the relationship between state policies and economic development in Argentina during the Kirchner era and the recent neoliberal comeback in the country. First, I argue that in the post-crisis period the Argentine state tolerated precarious work arrangements in order to foster capital investments after the economic breakdown. Based on a revitalized union bureaucracy in the industrial workplace, Argentina’s post-neoliberal political economy produced an unusually fragmented industrial citizenship which was only questioned by grassroots organizing drives and left oriented unions. Since 2015, Macri’s government imposed a number of pro-market reforms, including massive layoffs from government agencies and cuts in important public utility subsidies, such as those that previously applied to electricity and water provision. The devaluation of the peso meant that most wages could not keep pace with inflation for ordinary consumer goods; leading (like in 2014) to a drastic increase in poverty. The industrial workplace is again under the pressure of rising unemployment and sector-based flexibility agreements. In this context of neoliberal counter-offensive, resistance to the coming neoliberal offensive needs to include the same grassroots unions that fought workplace precarity during the Kirchnerista government.