The 36th International Labour Process Conference 2018 ‘CLASS AND THE LABOUR PROCESS’ Faculty of Social Sciences, University of , 21-23 March 2018

The first attempt of labor regulation in : The “Ley Nacional del Trabajo” of 1904 and the reaction of working-class organizations

Lucas Poy Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana “Dr. Emilio Ravignani” Universidad de Buenos Aires – CONICET

Abstract In the first months of 1904, in a context of intense labor unrest, the executive branch presented to Congress a bill that became known as the “National Labor Law” (“Ley Nacional del Trabajo”). The bill included a long report, signed by the minister Joaquín V. González and the president Julio A. Roca, and a very extensive set of rules designed to regulate the labor market, the labor process and —last but not least— also the workers’ organizations. By that time, Argentina had a growing capitalist economy, a young and radical labor movement, and no labor regulations whatsoever—in this context, the bill was the first attempt of regulating the relations between capital and labor and, not surprisingly, it sparked an important debate not only in the chamber itself but also among the ranks of workers and capitalists alike. Although it never became a law, as it was rejected in Parliament, the bill became an iconic reference in the history of labor regulations in Argentina. In this presentation, I will briefly introduce the main characteristics of the proposed bill and I will focus on the reactions that working class organizations developed towards it. While anarchist- oriented groups and unions made clear its complete rejection towards an initiative that was seen another intervention of an authoritarian state, the Socialist Party found itself in a much more complicated position. Some of its intellectual and middle-class cadres had actually participated in the making of the bill, but most of its working-class rank-and-file showed a big concern towards a bill that, while giving some concessions in the field of labor demands, established a heavy control on union activities. This paper will address these debates and tensions in order to better understand the reactions of working class organizations with regards to the first attempt of labor regulation made by the Argentine state. This presentation falls into the theme “Regulation, institutions and labor process”, although it also deals with working class resistances and union strategies. Please do not cite or circulate without author’s permission

Almost twenty years ago, in their introduction to a collective volume, Marcel van der Linden and Richard Price highlighted the importance of studying labor law with a historical and transnational perspective. They argued that, although labor regulations had a strong influence in the “daily, productive and organizational lives of all workers”, labor historians usually show a deficit in this area of knowledge.1 In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have devoted their attention to this topic, thus contributing to a better understanding of the way in which both state intervention and workers’ action shaped the development of labor legislation. In Argentina, the development of governmental responses to the ‘social question’, posed by the emergence of the labor movement, received scholarly attention since the 1980s.2 In the last fifteen years, the literature has been enriched by new studies, focused on the development of different aspects of labor legislation.3 This paper intends to contribute to this field of study by assessing one of the earliest cases, the Ley Nacional del Trabajo bill of 1904, and especially the reactions that working-class and leftist organizations developed towards it.4 In the beginning of the 20th century, Argentina was going through a process of accelerated social and economic changes. Closely integrated into the international market as one of the main exporters of agricultural products, the country became an important destination for foreign capital—mainly British—and underwent a rapid process of demographic growth, spurred by European immigration. The social transformations that followed were apparent in the whole country, but especially in its main cities, such as Buenos Aires and Rosario, which experienced the emergence of a concentrated

1 Marcel van der Linden and Richard Price (eds.), The Rise and Development of Collective Labour Law, Bern, Peter Lang, 2000, p. 7. 2 See, among others, José Panettieri, Las primeras leyes obreras, Buenos Aires, CEAL, 1984; Ernesto A. Isuani, Los orígenes conflictivos de la seguridad social argentina, Buenos Aires, CEAL, 1985; Juan Suriano, “El Estado argentino frente a los trabajadores urbanos: política social y represión, 1880-1916”, Anuario, Escuela de Historia, Rosario, n. 14, 1991, pp. 109-136; Eduardo Zimmerman, Los liberales reformistas. La cuestión social en la Argentina, Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 1995. 3 Jeremy Adelman provided an overall account in Van der Linden and Price’s collective volume. Line Schjolden, Karina Ramacciotti, and Andrés Stagnaro, among others, have addressed the development of occupational accidents jurisprudence. A collective volume put together by Mirta Lobato and Juan Suriano has recently studied the history of labor institutions and their regulations since the creation of the National Department of Labor, in 1907, until the 1950s. Jeremy Adelman, “Labour Law in Twentieth Century Argentina”, in van der Linden and Price, op.cit., pp. 19- 42; Line Schjolden, “Sentencing the Social Question: Court-Made Labour Law in Cases of Occupational Accidents in Argentina, 1900-1915”, Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Feb., 2009), pp. 91-120; Karina Ramacciotti, “De la culpa al seguro. La Ley de Accidentes de Trabajo, Argentina (1915-1955)”, Mundos do Trabalho, vol. 3, n. 5, 2011, pp. 266-284; Andrés Stagnaro, “La Ley de Accidentes del Trabajo y los debates promovidos para la creación de un fuero laboral. Argentina (1904-1946)”, Estudios Sociales, Santa Fe, n. 50, 2016, pp. 111-143; Mirta Lobato and Juan Suriano (eds.), La sociedad del trabajo: las instituciones laborales en la Argentina, 1900-1955, Buenos Aires, Edhasa, 2014. 4 The Ley Nacional del Trabajo is mentioned in almost every historical account of the Argentine labor movement, and specially in those devoted to the building of social legislation, but specific investigations are more scarce. See, among others, José Panettieri, “El Proyecto de Ley Nacional del Trabajo (1904)”, Trabajos y Comunicaciones, n. 13, 1965; Eduardo Martiré, “El proyecto de ley nacional del trabajo a través de la prensa porteña”, Revista de Historia del Derecho, n. 3, 1973; Ricardo Falcón “La relación estado-sindicatos en la política laboral del primer gobierno de Hipólito Yrigoyen”, Estudios Sociales, vol. 10, n. 1, 1996, pp. 75-85; Sandro Olaza Pallero, “El proyecto de Ley Nacional del Trabajo de Joaquín V. González (1904). Un intento de respuesta a la cuestión social”, Aequitas Virtual, vol. 8, n. 22, 2014. There are no works in the existing literature about the reactions of labor organizations towards the bill.

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and bellicose working class. Despite the segmentation between skilled and unskilled workers, and notwithstanding the gender, ethnic and cultural divisions of its motley population, different forms of collective organization and action—from mutual benefit societies to trade union federations, from recreational activities to general strikes—contributed to build bonds among all these workers and shaped the politics of the early labor movement.5 Starting in 1888-1889, when the first wave of strikes in Buenos Aires put labor unrest in the center of public attention, the last decade of the 19th century witnessed the development of trade unions and an increasing number of protests against labor conditions. The strikes brought to the fore demands over low wages, extended working days—up to 14 or 16 hours in certain trades—, the persistence of piecework, the employment of children, the unhealthy conditions of factories and workshops, the abundance of occupational accidents, etc. In spite of its important industrial development, by the turn of the century the country had no labor regulations whatsoever—the Civil Code, in force since 1871, lacked specific provisions for labor relations. One of the first specialists in labor legislation was to recall, a couple of years later, that “until 1904, the various violent strikes, most of which took place in the city of Buenos Aires, had not obtained from the Argentine government anything other than police measures”.6

When, in November 1902, the newly created Federación Obrera Argentina—first a common endeavor of socialists and anarchists, later abandoned by the former—called for the first general strike, the government reacted by sending to Congress a bill that authorized the executive branch to expel from the country, without prior judgment, any foreigner considered a danger to the “public order”. The bill was approved in less than 24 hours, becoming the ill-known Ley de Residencia. A year and a half later, in the first months of 1904, the executive branch sent a new bill to Congress. Unlike the Ley de Residencia—less than two pages long, including only five articles—the new project was a very extensive set of rules designed to regulate the labor market, the labor process and —last but not least— also the workers’ organizations. Not surprisingly, as the first attempt of regulating the relations between capital and labor, the bill sparked an important debate not only in the chamber itself but also among the ranks of workers and capitalists alike. Although it was never passed by Congress, the bill became an iconic reference in the history of labor regulations in Argentina. Drawing upon a variety of sources, including the bill itself, parliamentary speeches, contemporary assessments, commercial newspapers and working-class journals, this paper addresses these debates and tensions in order to better understand the reactions of working class organizations with regards to the first attempt of labor regulation made by the Argentine state.

5 Sebastián Marotta, El movimiento sindical argentino. Su génesis y desarrollo, 1857-1907, Buenos Aires, Lacio, 1960; Ricardo Falcón, Los orígenes del movimiento obrero (1857-1899), Buenos Aires, CEAL, 1984; Roberto Korzeniewicz, “Labor Unrest in Argentina, 1887-1907”, Latin American Research Review, vol. 24, n. 3, 1989; Lucas Poy, Los orı́genes de la clase obrera argentina: huelgas, sociedades de resistencia y militancia polı́tica en Buenos Aires, 1888-1896, Buenos Aires, Imago Mundi, 2014. 6 Alejandro M. Unsain, Manual de la legislación obrera argentina, Buenos Aires, Compañía Sudamericana de Billetes de Banco, 1915, p. 33

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The González bill, a response to labor unrest Although the introductory report was signed by both the president, Julio A. Roca, and his minister of Interior, Joaquín V. González, the bill was mainly the latter’s initiative. Born in 1863 in a small town in the province of La Rioja, next to the Chilean border, by the turn of the century González was a well-known jurist and politician, having served already as governor of his province and member of Parliament for several years. In his final report to Congress, later that year, González would acknowledge that he had “drawn up the detailed plan for the execution of this code, divided in chapters and paragraphs”, keeping for himself “the writing of most of them”. However, he admitted the participation of several “distinguished specialists and scholars”, who collaborated drafting some sections and performing “a wide study of the material, hygienic, legal and economic conditions of labor in various regions of the country”. Among these scholars the minister mentioned Juan Bialet Bassé, Augusto Bunge, Armando Claros, Carlos Malbrán, Leopoldo Lugones, Manuel Ugarte, Pablo Storni, José Ingenieros and Enrique del Valle Iberlucea.7 The bill was, therefore, an important initiative of Roca’s administration in its last year in office—his presidency ended in October, 1904—, as well as a personal project of minister González with the assistance of a variety of middle-class reformers and intellectuals.8 The bill comprised 270 pages, with more than 400 articles divided into 14 titles. After the first, introductory chapter, came one of the most controversial titles, called “On Foreigners”, which established a number of repressive measures upon certain groups of migrants, after their arrival to the country, and explicitly mentioned that the Ley de Residencia remained fully applicable. Titles III to XI developed a very extensive set of regulations on different aspects of the labor market. Titles III and IV were devoted to regulating the labor contract between workers and capitalists, a relationship that hitherto had no special status in the Civil Code. Title V dealt with occupational accidents, establishing some levels of employer’s responsibility. Title VI regulated the extension of the working day, addressing a number of issues of crucial importance in labor conflicts of the time —article 124 provided for a 48-hour week for adult male workers, and 42 for those between 16 and 18 years old, while article 152 established the Sunday rest. Title VII contained regulations regarding work from home and domestic industries. The working conditions of women and children, a very important issue for the labor movement of the day, were tackled in title VIII, whereas apprenticeship was the topic of title IX. Title X dealt with indigenous labor, and title XI with conditions of hygiene and security. All chapters were far-reaching and exhaustive, with articles regulating different aspects of the labor process to the maximum detail. In the last part of the bill, another set of controversial measures included title XII, that regulated labor organizations,

7 Memoria del Ministerio del Interior 1901-1904, Buenos Aires, s/d, 1904, pp. 105-106. 8 Some of the research made in preparation for the bill was published, and became the first account of labor conditions in the country. See Juan Bialet Massé, Informe sobre el estado de las clases obreras en el Interior de la República, Imprenta y Casa Editora de Adolfo Grau, Buenos Aires, 1904; Pablo Storni, “La industria y la situación de las clases obreras en la capital de la República”, Revista Jurídica y de Ciencias Sociales, XXV, vol. II, n. 4, 5 and 6, Buenos Aires, 1908.

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and title XIII, that provided for measures of arbitrage and control. Article 385, in the last part of the bill, established for instance that unions could be dissolved in case of “attitudes contrary to the national Constitution or social peace”, or due to “attacks against the freedom of the people”.9 Accompanying the bill was a lengthy introduction, that revealed the government’s arguments for presenting to Congress such an extensive set of measures. González and Roca presented the bill as a means both to counter increasing labor unrest and to include Argentina in the concert of modern nations that acknowledged the necessity of new legislation. The message of the executive branch pointed out that Argentina lacked the legal means to regulate modern labor processes, since the Civil Code was limited to establishing contracts between individuals. In this context, González and Roca argued in favor of a comprehensive set of measures bound to regulate labor relations, and criticized those who believed that it was better to pass self-standing laws addressing different issues. In their introduction, the president and the minister argued with scholarly tone that Argentine lawmakers should draw upon the experience of other countries.10 They contended that in Europe, the United States or Australia, the first labor laws had not been the result of a plan but rather “the consequence of deep revolutionary convulsions and bloody tremors, that have disturbed the peace of the people and forced the conservative parties to yield”.11 Such a situation should be avoided. Argentina, as a matter of fact, had already received such a warning. The message acknowledged that the general strike of November 1902 had shown the necessity of taking new measures. The minister and the president recalled that, at the time, the government had promised to “study the situation of the working classes” and to elaborate a bill “whose purpose was to eliminate as much as possible the causes of the upheavals that are becoming more and more evident.12 Later they stated, even more explicitly, that the bill’s goal was “to contribute, insofar as it depends on these kind of laws, to avoid the upheavals that the Republic has witnessed for some years now, but very particularly since 1902, when they have assumed violent and dangerous characters for public order”.13

The message signed by González and Roca was very straightforward in arguing that a thorough set of labor regulations was a necessity for the country if it was to prevent class conflict from escalating

9 Ministerio del Interior, Proyecto de Ley Nacional del Trabajo, Buenos Aires, Compañía Sudamericana de Billetes de Banco, 1904. 10 With regards to international influences, see Sandro Olaza Pallero, “La influencia de la legislación y doctrina española en el Proyecto de Ley Nacional del Trabajo de Joaquín V. González (1904)”, Revista de Historia del Derecho, n. 36, 2008, pp. 229-255. 11 Joaquín V. González, Obras completas de Joaquín V. González. Edición ordenada por el Congreso de la Nación Argentina, Buenos Aires, Imprenta Mercatali, 1935-1937, vol. 6, p. 320 (hereafter OC). 12 González, OC, p. 319. 13 González, OC, p, 325. Contemporary appraisals also acknowledged the importance of the 1902 general strike as the trigger of the bill. See, for instance, Cipriano Soria, “Ley Nacional del Trabajo”, Revista de Derecho, Historia y Letras, VII, XIX, Buenos Aires, 1904; José Ingenieros, La législation du travail dans la République Argentine, Paris, Eduard Cornely, 1906; Alejandro Ruzo (h), Legislación obrera, Buenos Aires, Imprenta de Biedma e hijo, 1906.

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to dangerous levels of social unrest.14 The goal of the proposed bill was to achieve “the permanent harmony between two essential factors of human work: labor force and capital”. There was a “visible intimate connection” between a “seemingly simple ‘labor contract’ and the social and political order”, as “the action of workers’ associations immediately affects the public order and the powers of the police”.15 Later on in the message they insisted that the purpose of their project was “to make inviolable the dividing line between the licit and the illicit, between peace and disturbance of order”, and to foster “the spirit of working-class association for useful and progressive purposes”.16

The repressive nature of the whole project, and its close ties to the Ley de Residencia, was not concealed. “The Constitution has foreseen”, they argued, “along with the benefits of an abundant immigration flow, all the dangers that it would entail for the future of the new nationality, if it did not limit the liberalities and privileges accorded to the foreigners”.17 An active intervention of the state was needed to keep this population under control. “Absolute liberality, as it has been understood among us until very recently” was “a serious danger for the future of our population, for public peace (...) and for the maintenance of justice”. Therefore, “national laws can and should perform this task of purification and selection of migratory streams that flow into Argentine territory, to prevent inactive and unhealthy agglomerations”.18 There was no naivety in the project. “Workers’ associations”, the president and the minister argued, “present two distinct and perhaps divergent sides: one leans towards peaceful demands and gradual and methodical action”, the other “towards violent and aggressive means that disturb public peace and constitutional order”. The bill could by no means protect the latter, which would rather “fall within the domain of criminal laws”.19 González and Roca accepted “any kind of society or union (…) constituted under the constitutional precepts” and “in harmony with the ends of the state no matter how extreme the clauses of its program”, but ruled out those who promoted “an illicit purpose or contrary to public order”. To be legal, unions must not be “contrary to the constitutional order or social peace”, nor “attempt against the integrity of the person in their essential rights”.20 In sum, the bill and the introductory text revealed that, while offering the first comprehensive set of labor regulations, the government also aimed at splitting the labor movement through political lines, according to their attitude towards violence, public order and the state. As we will see in the

14 , the president who took office a couple of months later, repeated the same idea in his inauguration speech: “The Ley Nacional del Trabajo will undoubtedly contribute to moderate strikes and, more in general, to prevent those frequent conflicts between employers and workers, that can compromise the country’s annual production” (Discurso leído por el Dr. D. Manuel Quintana ante el Congreso Nacional el 12 de octubre de 1904 en el acto de prestar juramento como Presidente de la República, Buenos Aires, s/d, 1904, p. 8). 15 González, OC, pp. 322-323. 16 González, OC, p. 378. 17 González, OC, p. 326. 18 González, OC, pp. 328-329. 19 González, OC, p. 381. 20 González, OC, p. 377.

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following sections, the bill indeed provoked different responses from the labor movement, that revealed distinct approaches to the role of legislation and the class character of the state.

The anarchist critique By 1904, the anarchist current was very influential among the Argentine labor movement. After a brief period dominated by the so-called ‘anti-organizational’ faction—which opposed trade unions because of its ‘authoritarian’ character—since the mid-1890s a strong ‘organizational’ current gained influence and made important progress in organizing the labor movement. After the departure of a minority of socialist-oriented unions, in 1903, the Federación Obrera Argentina fell under undisputed anarchist influence. At the time, it was the main trade union confederation of the country, with important strongholds in the dockworker’s and car driver’s unions.21

Following the request of many unions—car drivers, bakers, binders, construction workers, plumbers, painters, cigar makers—, the order of the day of the fourth congress of the federation, assembled in Buenos Aires in late July 1904, included a discussion about the Ley Nacional del Trabajo.22 After adjourning, the congress appointed a special commission to study the bill, which in turn advised “its rejection, for its pernicious character for the working class, since its deliberated purpose is to destroy our current organization”. The commission’s report was unanimously approved, and the congress passed a clearly-worded resolution against the government’s project.23 The bill was nothing less than “a governmental threat against collective and individual freedom”, and therefore the congress recommended “serious preparation in the proletarian camp in order to fight against it, by any means, including the Revolutionary General Strike as the last resort”.24

Along with the FOA, other anarchist-oriented labor organizations came forward with similar resolutions. By mid-1905, for instance, the Federation of Longshoremen of Argentina, and Brazil called for a “campaign against the Ley Nacional del Trabajo, whose restrictive provisions are a very serious threat to the free development of the workers' organization”.25 What was the rationale behind these resolutions? It is possible to trace the answer assessing anarchist brochures, different trade union publications and, of course, the newspaper La Protesta Humana, founded in 1897, which was gaining influence as the most important authorized voice of the anarchist current.

First of all, the anarchist press was eager to highlight that even the government reckoned the bill as a consequence of the 1902 general strike and, more in general, of the intense social and labor

21 Iaacov Oved, El anarquismo y el movimiento obrero en Argentina, México, Siglo XXI, 1978; Edgardo Bilsky, La F.O.R.A. y el movimiento obrero (1900-1910), Buenos Aires, CEAL, 1985; Gonzalo Zaragoza, Anarquismo argentino, 1876–1902, Madrid, Ediciones de la Torre, 1996; Juan Suriano, Paradoxes of utopia: anarchist culture and politics in Buenos Aires, 1890-1910, Oakland, AK Press, 2010. 22 “Cuarto congreso de la Federación Obrera Argentina”, La Organización Obrera, n. 34, July 25, 1904, p. 1. 23 “IV Congreso de la Federación Obrera Argentina”, La Organización Obrera, n. 35, August 25, 1904, p. 1. 24 El Obrero [Montevideo], n. 9, August 15, 1904. 25 “Federación de Estibadores y Afines”, La Acción Socialista, n. 3, August 11, 1905, p. 3.

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unrest that crossed the country. In their view, this proved the correctness of their own tactics and, moreover, the futility of the Socialist Party and what they considered the pacifist and institutional strategy of their adversaries in the labor movement. Far from being a result of socialist influence inside the ruling class, the bill was a consequence of “the revolutionary struggle that, in the form of general and partial strikes, has been taking place for some time among the various unions of the republic”. “The violent revolutionary action from below”, claimed La Protesta, “while bringing as a consequence the Ley de Residencia, also brought the Ley del Trabajo”.26 A consequence of direct action, the bill was, at the same time, an attempt to fool the working class in order to divert it from revolutionary goals. In this vein, the journal of an anarchist-oriented typographic union considered the bill to be “a bone thrown to the hungry people for them to entertain themselves by gnawing it”. The minister González was “like the inquisitor who knows he went too far in the application of a certain torture” and wants to provide “a truce to the tortured, offering him some food and relief”.27 From his exile in Montevideo, the well-known anarchist militant Adrián Troitiño argued that “the terror laws did not give the desired result”, and therefore the ruling class, “hidden behind an abortion called the Ley Nacional del Trabajo, try to baffle the proletariat of Buenos Aires by tortuous paths, completely opposed to the integral emancipation of the workers”.28 Acknowledging the bill as a result of their revolutionary action by no means led to any kind of positive appreciation of its content. Moreover, the nuances of the first articles—that pointed out that both projects were a product of the same bourgeois fear but admitted some differences between the new bill and the Ley de Residencia— soon gave way to an interpretation that underscored the similarities between both projects. The anarchist weekly Martín Fierro portrayed the project as a “draconian bill dictated rather by the fear of the proletarian vindications than by the serenity of spirit”, and a clear continuity of the Ley de Residencia, as far as it forged “the iron bars with which the doors are closed to the entry of foreigners in a country like this”.29 The most thorough and comprehensive critique of the bill in the anarchist field came in the form of a brochure written by J. A. Castro y G. Balsas, published by the thousands in Buenos Aires and Montevideo and distributed by several anarchist groups during 1904.30 The text put together different aspects of the anarchist arguments and reactions towards the bill. First of all, Castro and Balsas questioned the very idea of regulating labor relations. It was impossible for workers to accept a regulation “marked by our enemies (…) by the authors and direct accomplices of our misfortune and our slavery”, which attempted “to put down our powerful rebellions with hammer blows”. Such a rejection of labor regulation was not but a part of a more general and principled rejection of any laws or reforms whatsoever. “We are considered outlaws”, they went on, “and we

26 “La ‘Ley del Trabajo’ y el Dr. Ingegnieros”, La Protesta, May 15, 1904, p. 1. 27 “La verdad está en marcha”, El Gráfico, n. 3, May 1904, pp. 3-4. 28 “El despertar de los trabajadores en la República Argentina”, El Obrero, n. 12, October 20, 1904, p. 1. 29 “Extranjeros”, Martín Fierro, n. 32, October 17, 1904. 30 J. Alberto Castro and C. García Balsas, Críticas al proyecto González (Ley Nacional del Trabajo), Buenos Aires- Montevideo, Grupo Aurora, 1904

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do not know nor recognize any law, good or bad, for we believe that all of them are detestable, abominable”. They rejected “every law as pernicious” and they did not recognize “the right of man to legislate over man, let alone the right of those who never worked to legislate about labor relations”.31 In a somewhat related argument, they rejected the bill because it strengthened the state apparatus: “More authorities, more inspectors, more arbitration courts? Don’t we have enough with the mountain of authoritarianism that we already suffer, that corners our freedom?”.32

The brochure moved on to address the reforms proposed by the bill, a terrain in which the authors felt much less at ease. In a context in which labor regulations were nonexistent, where relations between workers and capitalists were totally unprotected, it was certainly not an easy task to criticize a bill that proposed a long list of rules and procedures—some of which had been part of the demands of the labor movement itself. Castro and Balsas attempted two approaches. The first one was to argue that the improvements proposed in the bill were of little value, or would be compensated by employers in another way. “What can matter to us one hour more or one hour less of dehumanizing work, when capital will always have resources to avoid any harm? (…) What does a pension to elders mean, if capital will never let the workers reach this age?”.33 An alternative, albeit related, approach was to point out that the proposed improvements were in fact achievements already obtained by workers with other methods. The bill wanted to provide nothing but what “we have already obtained in large part, not by resorting to the concessions of tyrants, but by weighing our means of struggle”.34 The brochure claimed that “this law, bill or whatever it is, with its author and coders at the head, runs behind the improvements that the worker, in its continuous evolution, obtained from capital”.35 The authors of the brochure felt much more comfortable attacking the sections that overtly limited worker’s rights. For one, they insisted in portraying the bill as a continuation of the Ley de Residencia. Indeed, a large part of the brochure dealt with the bill’s arrangements against foreigners. The project was “nothing but the second part, more attenuated, but also more terrible, of the famous ‘law of expulsion’”.36 According to Castro and Balsas, it was just naïve not to acknowledge that articles 6 and 7—which allowed for the expulsion of foreigners under a number of conditions—actually reduced to nothing any other regulation that could mean an improvement for workers, for they put an unbeatable weapon in the hands of the state and capital. Workers would be too afraid to request the enforcement of labor regulations, they argued, out of fear that those articles be used against them. In second place, they questioned the severe hurdles that the bill posed to unions and labor associations. The brochure pointed out that the project did not recognize the right to strike, a fact that actually worsened the situation of the workers. Referring to the section on employment contracts, they considered that part “the most perverse, because it leaves an open

31 Castro and Balsas, op.cit., p. 59. 32 Castro and Balsas, op.cit., p. 15. 33 Castro and Balsas, op.cit., pp. 13-16. 34 Castro and Balsas, op.cit., p. 14. 35 Castro and Balsas, op.cit., p. 39. 36 Castro and Balsas, op.cit., p. 22.

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field to capitalist iniquities, today somewhat restricted by the law, voluntary or forced, that grants the worker the right to declare a strike, a right that disappears with the approval of the bill”.37

They concluded that the bill, a “government – bourgeois – socialist panacea, with visible signs of unanimous approval by the press”, was “not only an inconceivable absurdity but a monstrosity that needs to be fought until its complete annulment”.38 An anarchist manifesto that circulated in early 1905 reinforced all these arguments: it considered the bill “a gag on our lips”, designed to “prevent us from speaking to our companions in misfortune in order to inculcate in their minds and hearts the emancipating ideal that guides our actions”. The conclusion was clear: the bill deserved the “strongest condemnation” and it was imperative to “combat it with all the forces of which we are capable”.39

Socialists in turmoil Less influential inside the working class than their anarchist rivals, the socialists represented nevertheless a not negligible portion of the labor movement in turn-of-the-century Argentina. The activity of socialist groups went back to the 1870s and 1880s, when French and German migrants set up the first organizations, but it was during the 1890s when socialist organizations gained strength, giving way to the formal constitution of a Socialist Party in the winter of 1896. Under the influence of the physician Juan Bautista Justo, the party displayed a stubborn militant activity oriented to intervene in parliamentary elections and a reformist and gradualist political perspective, that nevertheless encountered a muffled but steady internal opposition. In March 1904, i.e. just when González and Roca were about to present their bill in public, the Socialist Party had obtained an important victory by electing one of its members, the young lawyer Alfredo L. Palacios, as a national deputy.40

On May 11, 1904, just over a week after he took office as a member of Parliament, Alfredo Palacios made a speech in the chamber in the presence of Minister González. Palacios found himself in an awkward position, as he criticized the minister for the repression suffered by the workers' demonstrations on May Day but, at the same time, applauded the Ley Nacional del Trabajo. Palacios argued that the bill was not a project of the executive power but rather “the consequence of the events that this party of order, the socialist party, has produced”. The deputy went on to argue that “almost every topic addressed in the bill has been put forward many times by my party in the past”. Moreover, in an open reference to the collaboration of socialist militants and

37 Castro and Balsas, op.cit., p. 36. 38 Castro and Balsas, op.cit., p. 58. 39 La Protesta, May 16, 1905. 40 With regards to the early history of the Socialist Party, see, among others, Jacinto Oddone, Historia del socialismo argentino, Buenos Aires, La Vanguardia, 1934; Richard Walter, The Socialist Party of Argentina, 1890-1930, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1977; José Aricó, La hipótesis de Justo, Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 1999; Hernán Camarero and Carlos Herrera, El Partido Socialista en Argentina. Sociedad, política e ideas a través de un siglo, Buenos Aires, Prometeo, 2005; Horacio Tarcus, Marx en la Argentina, Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI, 2007.

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sympathizers such as Ugarte, Del Valle Iberlucea and Bunge in the making of the bill, he recalled that “this bill presented by the minister, that is our work, have benefited from the collaboration of many young men who have not been educated in the official spheres, young men who have belonged or belong to the socialist party and that the interior minister has called to learn from them”.41 Indeed, during these first weeks of public debate, the party press did not conceal that some socialists were involved in the preparation of the bill. In late March, a short article in La Vanguardia informed that senior party member Enrique Del Valle Iberlucea, who was also a well-known lawyer, had been assigned the “task of drafting a part of the project on national labor legislation”, and therefore asked “all colleagues and workers” to send to his home address “all the data that you think is convenient about working hours in factories, workshops and other places of work, salaries in different jobs, agreements between employers and workers on schedules and wages and working conditions at home”.42 In May, an article by Ángel Sesma set out to criticize José Ingenieros, a young intellectual and former party member who supported the minister González and the bill in a commercial newspaper.43 However, Sesma was careful enough to make clear that, without being so enthusiastic as Ingenieros, socialists should still appraise this first attempt of labor reform. “We do not have such great admiration for the minister”, explained Sesma, “we do not feel this absolute admiration for his work”. “However”, he went on, “we do not diminish the merits he makes with the Argentine working class by codifying labor laws. Just as jurists remember Vélez Sarsfield, workers will remember González, without any fetishism, or useless overflows of enthusiasm”. Even while trying to keep a distance from any admiration of González, the article was unequivocal in his defense of the bill: “when the time comes, we will applaud the Minister and the Congress, and the creators of the bill, as we will applaud the people who protest and have gestures instead of words, expressive gestures with which they let the powerful classes know that they are thirsty for justice”.44 In early June, the party press reproduced another speech made by Alfredo Palacios in the Chamber. The socialist deputy had introduced a bill to repeal the Ley de Residencia, and wanted to stress the difference between that law and the proposed Ley del Trabajo. According to Palacios, “today the executive power knows that in our country there is an organized proletariat, knows that there is a defined class struggle, knows that there is a Socialist Party”. The socialist deputy celebrated that the ruling class had learnt that it was necessary “to implement measures to promote the material, intellectual and moral improvement of the proletariat”, and that labor unrest could not be “solved by virtue of exceptional provisions”. Flattering González in order to support his own project, he went on to remember his fellow deputies that the minister “has declared himself an admirer of the new ideas that are opening a gap in the hard rocks of prejudice”. He concluded that the executive

41 Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados. Año 1904, Buenos Aires, Imprenta y Encuadernación de la Cámara de Diputados, 1925, vol. I, p. 163. 42 “Legislación obrera”, La Vanguardia, March 26, 1904, p. 3. 43 See José Ingenieros, La législation du travail dans la République Argentine, Paris, Eduard Cornely, 1906. 44 “El socialismo y la Ley del Trabajo”, La Vanguardia, May 21, 1904, p. 2.

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branch should then remember that the new project was incompatible with the Ley de Residencia; the proposed bill was “the result of the methodization of scientific work”, while the previous law was nothing but “the logical consequence of rushing and ignoring the economic laws that govern production”.45

This sympathetic approach towards the bill, however, was not the only response to be found inside the Socialist Party. In a volume published in 1906, the jurist Alejandro Ruzo would point out that “the socialist party has devoted some study to the matter and opinions have been divided”. Ruzo found out that there were “some who accept the project in its entirety, as a conquest of an invaluable importance, in its campaign for the improvement of the conditions of the working class; and there are others who reject it outright”.46 Indeed, the sixth party congress, assembled in June 1904, became the main stage for the discussion. The commission responsible for drafting a resolution was integrated by Sesma, del Valle Iberlucea and Juan Schäfer, and could not reach a unanimous stance, for the first two, as we have seen, held a positive view of the bill, while the latter advocated its rejection. Since the internal proceedings of the congress are not available, it is not easy task to reconstruct the details of the discussion—it is clear, however, that Schäfer became the main character of the meeting, as he came out of the commission with a minority report but managed to convince the full session to back his resolution. According to a contemporaneous account, “a heated discussion ensued in which Dr. Enrique del Valle Iberlucea advocated a pronouncement in favor of the project, which accepted many of the bases of the party's minimum program”, only to be “challenged by other members, without reaching an agreement on the point”.47 Indeed, the resolution that carried the day was a bit of a compromise, as it appointed a commission to study the project and suggest a further course of action. In any case, it represented a defeat for those who had openly appraised the bill. The congress declared that protective labor legislation was “a desire of the working class”, expected to be “achieved by the conscious effort of workers”, but at the same time repudiated “the current draconian labor law of the executive branch, notwithstanding which the socialist deputy, while opposing it in general, may introduce amendments in accordance with the party goals”.48

45 Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados. Año 1904, Buenos Aires, Imprenta y Encuadernación de la Cámara de Diputados, 1925, vol. I, p. 197. 46 Alejandro Ruzo (h), Legislación obrera, Buenos Aires, Imprenta de Biedma e hijo, 1906, p. 31. 47 Ruzo, op.cit., pp. 31-32. 48 “Sexto congreso del Partido Socialista argentino”, La Vanguardia, July 2, 1904, p. 2. José Ingenieros would explain the resolution of the party congress as a result of “anarchist pressure”. He recalled that, at first, prominent socialists such as the Valle Iberlucea and Ugarte had participated in its drafting, that Palacios had appraised it in Congress and that “several socialist leaders” had “supported the bill in general”. But then, according to Ingenieros, the anarchist agitation “found some resonance in certain labor environments”, and “the leaders of the Socialist Party, influenced by this propaganda, came to believe that a hostile attitude towards the bill would be sympathetic to certain workers’ unions and would suit better the party’s political and electoral interests” (José Ingenieros, Socialismo y legislación del trabajo, Buenos Aires, 1906, p. 108).

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It is possible to piece together Schäfer’s rationale in two articles he published soon after the party congress in the theoretical journal La Internacional.49 He pointed out that the bill “admirably satisfied the capitalists’ aspirations” although he admitted that it was “generally believed that this law would favor the workers”. This was a consequence of the bill being “so extensive and complicated”, which “seriously hindered its study by those more affected by it”, i.e. the workers. He admitted that “certain parts” of the bill could produce some expectation among the labor movement, such as the sections on conciliation and arbitration tribunals. He therefore set out to patiently explain why workers should still oppose the government’s project.

Unlike the anarchists, Schäfer did not disapprove state intervention in principle. He made clear that unions should accept “legislative intervention” in order to “ensure the improvements conquered with many sacrifices in the economic field [i.e. through industrial action]”, but at the same time he stated that labor organizations should reject it outright if the purpose of the legislation was to “hinder their development” or “restrict their action by preventing them from using the only weapon they have: unity and solidarity”. And this was actually the case with the González bill. If unions accepted these provisions, in exchange for some “few and very problematic” improvements, they would be “renouncing to their principled mission”. According to Schäfer, the Ley de Residencia and the state of siege were “reliable measures to put down any strikes once they already took place, but since it is not possible to declare a permanent state of siege, it is not enough to prevent strikes”. This was the goal of the new bill, as it sought to preclude the very existence of trade unions “as associations for struggle”.

In any case, although the congress had provided a compromise, in the months that followed the differences remained visible, as part of the increasing tension between the party leadership and an internal opposition who was later to become the revolutionary syndicalist faction. Even if both sides criticized the bill, they did it with very different arguments. Palacios, Justo and their friends would not question the bill in principle, but rather the fact that it tried to tackle too many issues at the same time and provided for restricting measures towards labor organizations. The syndicalist group, as we will see, moved forward to a much more global criticism, that included questioning the class character of the state itself.

A good example of the first attitude was provided by Basilio Vidal in an article published in La Vanguardia shortly after the congress. He endeavored to criticize the bill, following the party official resolution, but did so in a manner that focused exclusively on the obstacles it set for labor organizations. Vidal claimed that the bill’s main goal was to “prevent labor organization, after practice proved that the Ley de Residencia could not fulfill this primordial task”, and went on to introduce a very familiar argument among socialists: the “backwardness” of the Argentine bourgeoisie. Due to its “ignorance”, the ruling class had been unable to take “correct and conducive measures to remove the causes that generated social antagonisms”. According to Vidal, therefore, the problem with the bill was that it attempted to ban labor organizations, instead of seeing them

49 Juan Schäfer, “La ley nacional del trabajo y las aspiraciones obreras”, La Internacional, August 13-20, 1904 (The following quotations belong to this article).

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“as a guarantee of greater efficiency in production”, as an “intelligent” bourgeoisie would have done.50

An even clearer account of the party leadership stance after the sixth congress can be found in the answers than Juan B. Justo and Nicolás Repetto offered to a questionnaire sent by La Internacional, published in July 1905. Justo shared a diagnosis with González and other reformers: Argentina, he said, “finds itself in full-blown capitalism, but lacks even the rudiments of social legislation”. There was no reason for “losing time discussing whether state intervention is necessary”, for it was clear to him that “a whole system of labor protection laws should be adopted”. Justo pointed out that if the bill became a properly enforced law, “it would avoid many of the ‘labor’ conflicts of the day, because it prescribes many of the conditions that workers demand, and prohibits many of the abuses against which they protest”—he also acknowledged that the bill provided for many of the demands of the “minimum program” of his own party.51

Justo went on to argue that he found the bill’s provisions “applicable”, but he subtly introduced a certain condition, typical of his reasoning: the bill’s “good provisions” could only be applied “if those in charge were men eager to raise the situation of the proletariat”. This condition, added Justo, depended “above all on the capabilities and wishes of the proletariat itself”. Thus Justo managed to make clear a nuanced assessment of the bill: labor regulation was necessary and desirable, but it would only become a reality when the working class—and the Socialist Party itself—raised its “moral and material level”, i.e. developed its intellectual, political and organizational capabilities. He was subtle enough to leave unanswered the question of whether this meant that socialists had to take state power in their hands, and how. The repressive measures of the bill occupied only a small portion of Justo’s comment: he argued that they were “superfluous”, as “the reassurance of property and freedom as the capitalist class understands them, is largely provided by the current laws”. He even complained that these repressive measures appeared to workers as an “odious restriction to labor organization”, thus “distorting and discrediting the whole bill in the eyes of the workers”.52

Nicolás Repetto was even more straightforward in his appraisal of the bill. Its provisions were “very wise and farsighted, and there is no doubt that, if the solution of labor conflicts only depended on them, the harmony between bosses and workers would be assured”. Developing Justo’s reasoning, Repetto went on to argue that the problem laid on the difficulties for applying such measures in a country like Argentina, where labor organization was still weak. “The authors of the law”, he continued, “when devising such a wonderful legal mechanism, did not take into account the country in which it should be applied—they gave us a law for one of those industrial environments based on the modern spirit of trades, precisely what does not yet exist among us”. He also introduced another important characteristic trait of the socialist perspective in the following years, arguing that he preferred “partial achievements, acquired slowly and gradually”. A whole

50 “Intervención oficial en los conflictos del trabajo”, La Vanguardia, August 13, 1904, pp. 1-2. 51 “Enquete sobre el proyecto de ley nacional del trabajo”, La Internacional, n. 14, July 1, 1905, pp. 214-215. 52 “Enquete sobre el proyecto de ley nacional del trabajo”, La Internacional, n. 14, July 1, 1905, pp. 214-215.

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set of regulations, a new code, “could seem ideal for those who think that laws shape societies, but not for those who know that the written order comes after changes in reality”.53

After the defeat of the initial appraisal of the bill in the sixth party congress, the Socialist Party thus developed a more nuanced approach that applauded the positive provisions of the bill while, at the same time, kept a certain distance with it. The critical remarks were sometimes related to the repressive measures against working-class organizations—a criticism shared by the whole spectrum of the labor movement—and especially to the fact that only a steady and gradual development of the proletariat would allow the provisions to be properly enforced. In such a way, Justo and the party leadership managed to develop an argument that did not question the class character of the state, nor the risk of losing the revolutionary attitude of the working class, but rather promoted a reformist approach that celebrated labor legislation and called for piecemeal reforms, promoted by the working class itself. Indeed, in 1906, Palacios argued in Congress that the bill had failed because it had been “presented as a block”. His conclusion was that “a set of laws that govern men’s relations cannot arise suddenly, like Minerva in the head of Jupiter”, and therefore supported “partial laws that fulfill the needs of the historical moment, that appear gradually and progressively”. After the failure of the González project, which “despite all its shortcomings” was prized as “a very appreciable intellectual effort”, the socialist deputy announced his intention to present a series of bills, for which he took up “many provisions of the González project, modified with the purpose of making them more practical”.54

The revolutionary syndicalist perspective Meanwhile, another perspective was developing inside the Socialist Party, around the revolutionary syndicalist faction. Inspired in the writings of authors such as Sorel and Labriola, and following similar discussions that were taking place inside the socialist parties of Italy and France, a strong current developed in those years among the ranks of the Argentine party. Internal quarrels had been a constant feature of party life since the early years of socialist activity in the country, in particular over the relationship between industrial action and political participation in the elections. Around 1903-1904, most of the critics started to coalesce around the syndicalist perspective, and managed to challenge the party leadership’s influence in the Unión General de Trabajadores, the socialist-oriented counterpart of the Federación Obrera Argentina.55 As we will see, the critique of the González bill played a central role in the development of this current.

53 “Enquete sobre el proyecto de ley nacional del trabajo”, La Internacional, n. 14, July 1, 1905, p. 215. 54 Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados. Año 1906, Buenos Aires, Talleres Gráficos de la Penitenciaría Nacional, 1907, t. I, p. 142. 55 On the history of revolutionary syndicalism in Argentina, see Hugo del Campo, El sindicalismo revolucionario (1905-1940), Buenos Aires, CEAL, 1986; Maricel Bertolo, Una propuesta gremial alternativa: el sindicalismo revolucionario (1904-1906), Buenos Aires, CEAL, 1993; Alejandro Belkin, Sobre los orígenes del sindicalismo revolucionario en Argentina, Buenos Aires, Centro Cultural de la Cooperación, 2007. For an international account, Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe, Revolutionary syndicalism: an international perspective, Aldershot, Scolar Press, 1990.

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Aquiles Lorenzo, who was once secretary general of the party and later became one of the main leaders of the faction, provides one of the best examples of this perspective. In the main article of the September 1904 issue of La Internacional—a theoretical monthly journal that was soon to become a syndicalist stronghold—he presented a detailed critique of the bill, which he attempted to place in a wider historical perspective.56 Lorenzo argued that, in the history of capitalism, the organization of the proletariat posed a challenge to the ruling class, which needed to adapt its tactics. Repression and coercive measures were always the first resource, but neglecting other options would have been, for the bourgeoisie, “a dull and clumsy act, fatal to its interests”. Insofar as it was an “insightful” class, the bourgeoisie “assumes a new attitude to confront a new phase of the proletarian movement”. Instead of limiting itself to muzzling any opposition, the bourgeoisie “yields to immediate demands that will not weaken its strength by any means, as long as it remains the owner of the political power”. According to Lorenzo, thus, “a protective labor legislation” did not imply a capitalist defeat, “a weakening of its forces”. Britain showed the best example. Its ruling class had not appealed to brutal measures, but rather “legislated broadly in favor of the workers”, thus obtaining the “domestication of the working class” that they had not obtained through repressive laws.

This approach showed an important difference with the party leadership’s. According to Lorenzo, reformist measures were seen as a normal behavior of the ruling class, a symptom of its intelligence. Unlike Justo and his friends, Lorenzo understood the Argentine bourgeoisie as a wise and intelligent class, ready to follow the example of the ruling classes from other countries. The strikes of 1902-1903, halting the docks and the railways and thus the export of agricultural products, had attacked the very sources of income of the Argentine ruling class.57 As a response, the bourgeoisie, “acting as a bourgeoisie”, devised methods for the “domestication” of the proletariat. As of September 1904, however, this perspective did not yet mean a total breakup with the socialist approach, nor a confluence with the anarchist perspective. The reformist measures of the ruling class had a twofold character: for the workers, it meant “an elevation of their moral and material level”—a concept borrowed from Juan B. Justo—, for the bourgeoisie, “an increase in surplus value”. What was to be done? According to Lorenzo, the working class should take advantage of these improvements, but “without losing sight of its own revolutionary purpose”. The improvements should not “diminish the emancipatory aspirations” of the proletariat but “reinforce it”. Otherwise, the working class would be “playing the game of the bourgeoisie”.

It was a very thin line, and Lorenzo went on to argue in such a way that showed how hard it was to “take advantage of the improvements” without compromising the very existence of the “emancipatory aspirations”. For “one of the main goals” of the bill was “to destroy labor organization in the main industries of the country”. It was not only an organizational goal, but also

56 “Proyecto sobre ley nacional del trabajo”, La Internacional, n. 5, September 1, 1904, pp. 49-53 (All the following quotations belong to this article). 57 He elaborated on this argument in a speech delivered at a union meeting, later that year. He argued that the bill aimed “specially to destroy the organizations of railway and dock workers, because these constitute the trades without which the production of the country is paralyzed” (“Gremiales”, La Vanguardia, November 5, 1904, p. 3).

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a political one. According to Lorenzo, the bill’s deepest aspiration was “to remove from the workers’ organism any doctrine or emancipatory ideal that illuminates their consciences, in order to drive them into an anti-capitalist struggle”. Its conclusion was that any assessment of this bill— or any other reformist measure, for that matter—had to investigate the “political purpose, the class purpose” that lay behind it. And the González bill left no room for any second thoughts: it was “disastrous for the working people”, and its reforms could not “attenuate in the least their reactionary character”. It was impossible to “set apart the good from the bad, because both converge to the same point, aim at the same goal”. The bill could only be either fully rejected or fully accepted; there was “no middle ground”. For Lorenzo, not even “all the reforms of the world” could compensate “the freedom of action that the working class would yield to the bourgeoisie with that law”. Eight months later, the syndicalist perspective was much more defined, and the criticism of the Ley Nacional del Trabajo became even sharper. On May 1, 1905, La Internacional devoted another editorial piece to the bill, in this case signed by Luis Bernard.58 He insisted in pointing out the “intelligence” of the Argentine bourgeoisie, which was “imitating its older sisters”, because it understood “all the benefits that could be extracted from a skillful labor legislation”. The bill was nothing else than a “legal dam to the labor movement”, designed to drive it towards a “direction friendly with the interests of capitalism”. Bernard also followed the idea, previously developed by Lorenzo, that the bourgeoisie “grasped the necessity of modifying its procedures of social domination, searching for highly qualified resources”. He went on to argue that one such resource was labor legislation, in which “the class spirit, hidden in an accumulation of apparent universal measures, is only noticeable with the relative effort of an absolutely socialist mind”. This was another important breakup with Justo’s perspective, deeply rooted in the idea of “transparency” of social facts.59 Bernard argued that understanding the “insidious intention of these bourgeois legislation” was only possible by considering “with a very radical criterion the antecedents and acts of the individuals who dictate them, and even more so the interests of the class to which they belong”.

For Bernard, the critique of the bill worked as a token for a deeper differentiation with nodal assumptions of the socialist perspective. “In our party”, he regretted, “there are those who consider the bill a progress for the proletariat, thus forgetting the economic foundation that lay beneath any action of the bourgeoisie”. He went on to denounce that many socialists had “come to believe in a moral evolution that operates inside the consciences, in the sense of a universal ethical improvement that would make less acute the struggle between individuals of the antagonistic classes”. Bernard was hitting a decisive point here. He claimed that the party had gone astray to such an extent that it had “come up with a wrong interpretation of an evolutionary movement of

58 “La Ley Nacional del Trabajo”, La Internacional, n. 12, May 1, 1905, pp. 172-175 (the following quotations belong to this article). 59 On this important topic, see Javier Franzé, El concepto de política en Juan B. Justo, Buenos Aires, CEAL, 1993; José Aricó, La hipótesis de Justo, Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 1999. The most useful original source regarding this concept is Juan B. Justo, El realismo ingenuo, Buenos Aires, La Vanguardia, 1914.

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the capitalist regime and its forms of domination”. This mistake was seriously misleading for workers’ consciences, as it concealed the “character of the functions and acts that come from the bourgeois state”. The conclusion was far-reaching. According to Bernard, the support of the González bill showed that the party had abandoned “the positive tradition of scientific socialism”, moving on to consider “the institutions created by our exploiters in their exclusive defense and protection”, as proletarian conquests and instruments of redemption”. This meant nothing less than a betrayal of the “indestructible Marxist conception about the unique and true role that [these state measures] fill in contemporary society”. In the same vein, an article signed by Aquiles Lorenzo and published in the same issue developed a clear critique of the official party line. It denounced that, “very often hymns are raised to the bourgeoisie that decides to create some of those seductive and dangerous institutions, attributing to it the possession of a liberal and nobly progressive spirit”. All this was nothing more than “hollow verbiage, declamation, bourgeois sophistry”.60 In September, 1905, the third congress of the Unión General de Trabajadores, now clearly under syndicalist hegemony, passed a resolution against the bill. It stated that this piece of legislation, “passed by the ruling bourgeoisie”, had the only purpose of “removing the class character to labor organization”. It pointed out that “this most important goal is veiled and obscured by some provisions of apparent benevolent spirit”, but stressed that “its sanction as a whole constitutes, as expressed in its Title XII, a very serious threat to the development of working-class organization in the country”.61 The resolution was passed unanimously, in a congress where other topics had been seriously disputed, showing that even the socialist-oriented delegates that were still active inside the UGT supported a clear-cut resolution against the bill.62 Inside the Socialist Party, however, the schism between the leadership and the syndicalist faction—fueled, as we have shown, by their different responses to the González bill and to state intervention in general—was inevitable. A couple of months later, in the seventh party congress assembled in the rural town of Junín, in April 1906, the syndicalist group was officially expelled.

Conclusion This paper studied the first attempt of labor regulation in Argentina, in the early twentieth century. In so doing, it intended to contribute to the global historiography of labor law, showing that also in the so-called “Global South” it is possible to trace early developments of labor legislation, that need to be taken into account in order to avoid historical accounts exclusively centered in North Atlantic experiences.63 The very existence of such an extensive set of measures to regulate labor relations shows the concern that working-class activity had created in important sections of the

60 “El arbitraje obligatorio y la Ley Nacional del Trabajo”, La Internacional, n. 12, May 1, 1905, pp. 178-181. 61 “Tercer congreso de la Unión General de Trabajadores”, La Unión Obrera, n. 28, September 1905, p. 1. 62 “Tercer congreso de la Unión General de Trabajadores”, La Acción Socialista, n. 4, August 21, 1905, p. 1. 63 See van der Linden and Price, op.cit., p. 9.

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ruling class of the country. As showed in this paper, Minister González, and other reformers, considered that a comprehensive set of regulations was the best means to preclude further developments of labor activity that could put into question the social order. At the same time, the fact that the bill was not passed by Congress—it did not even reach the point of a plenary discussion in the chamber—indicates that another important section of the ruling class, represented for instance by the Unión Industrial Argentina, was less concerned with such long-term insights and considered the bill an unnecessary concession that would compromise its immediate profits. This paper focused on the reaction of the working class towards the bill. Overall, the labor movement openly rejected it, as shown by the resolutions passed by both the main federations (the FORA and the UGT) and many other trade unions. This labor opposition obviously played a part in the ultimate failure of the bill, as it showed that also a majority of the working class was, at the time, not ready to accept such a thorough set of regulations, which included a severe repression on trade union activity. A closer view, however, shows that important differences existed inside labor ranks with regards to the response towards the bill. This paper argued that these reactions indicated very significant differences in theoretical approaches among the political currents of the labor movement which are important to understand later developments in Argentine history.

While anarchist-oriented groups and unions made clear its complete rejection towards an initiative that was seen another intervention of an authoritarian state, the Socialist Party found itself in a much more complicated position. Some of its intellectual and middle-class cadres had actually participated in the making of the project, but most of its working-class rank-and-file showed big concerns towards a bill that, while giving some concessions in the field of labor demands, established a heavy control on union activities. Moreover, the important revolutionary syndicalist faction—that was to be expelled from the party in 1906—developed a third interpretation of the bill, that contributed to shape some deeper criticism to the party leadership. In the years and decades that followed, the memory of the Ley del Trabajo and the different reactions that it provoked continued to shape these three political currents, main actors inside the Argentine labor movement, as they faced new—and more successful—attempts of state control over labor relations.

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