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University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/2596 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. Mobilisation theory, workers solidarity and the evolution of conflict: collective action in multinational companies in Argentina by Maurizio Atzeni A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial and Business Studies University of Warwick, Warwick Business School March 2005 The thesis represents the candidate's own work and has not been subinitted for a degree at another University. "La Revolucion es un sueno eterno " (Andres Rivera 1987, La revolucion es un sueho eterno) 1 he organisation does not supply the troops for the struggle, but the struggle, in an ever growing degree, supplies recruits for the organisation " (Rosa Luxemburg 1971, p. 66) "For ever non e' solo un individuo. - e' un tipo sociale. Da questo punto di vista non deve essere trascurato: deve essere conosciuto, studiato, discusso e superato " (Antonio Gramsci 1969, p. 2 10, Lo Stato e il Soeialismo) For ever is not just an individual: it is a social type. In this perspective it does not have to be dismissed: it must be known, studied, analysed and surpassed Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENT& ABSTRACT: 3 INTRODUCTION: 5 CHAPTER 1: A DISCUSSION ON THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE METHODOLOGY USED. 19 1. Introduction. 19 2. Quantitativeor qualitative? 23 3. An overviewof the qualitativeapproach in labour studies 27 4. Oral history and interviews. 30 5. The validity and reliability of qualitativemethods. 33 6. Issuesof generalisation. 38 7. Mobilisation and social reality 42 8. How and what to compare? 44 9. Methodologyin practice. 48 10.Conclusions. 52 CHAPTER 2: MOBILISATION AND ITS THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS, BETWEEN SUBJECTIVITY AND THE INEVITABILITY OF CONFLICT. 55 1. Introduction. 55 2. Mobilisation theory: interest,dissatisfaction and injustice. 59 3. Conflict in the workplace,the natureof the employmentrelation and workers'needs. 70 4. Objective and subjective reconstructions of consciousnessand collective action. 80 5. Toward a conceptualisation of solidarity. 88 6. Conclusions. 96 CHAPTER 3: THE ROOTS OF MOBILISATION, WORKPLACE AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN ARGENTINA IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE. 100 1. Introduction. 100 2. Military repression and workers' mobilisation. 101 3. The relation between workers and trade unions: politicallbureaucratic leadership vs. grass roots movements. 115 a) Trade unions and their relation with the state 119 119 - From 1943 to 1955 121 - From 1955 to 1976 124 - From 1976 to 2000 126 - General considerations b) Workers and the opposition to bureaucracy 130 c) Preliminary conclusions 136 4. The political economy and social conditions at the time of the conflict: neo-liberalism, labour flexibility, trade union dis-empowerment, new labour struggles. 139 5. Conclusions. 148 CHAPTER 4: DYNAMICS OF MOBILISATION, INJUSTICE AND SOLIDARITY 157 1. Introduction. 157 2. The context: 163 a) The chronologyof conflict 163 b) The unions 166 c) The companies 176 3. The process: 185 a) Dynamics of mobilisation and perceptions of injustice 185 b) Mobilisation and solidarity: a necessaryintroduction. 201 c) The process of solidarity formation 206 d) Conclusion: a comparison between the two cases. 217 CHAPTER 5: CONFLICT EVOLUTION AND RADICALISATION AT FIAT 227 1. Introduction. 227 2. Leadership,activism and collective action. 227 3. Mobilisation in progress:evolution and radicalisation. 238 4. Repressionand counter mobilisation. 252 5. Conclusions. 259 CHAPTER 6: THE TWO DIMENSIONS OF MOBILISATION. 266 1. Causesand dynarnics. 266 2. Effects. 275 3. Lessons from Argentina? 280 4. Limitations and final considerations. 284 ANNEX: INTERVIEW WITH FIAT'S MOBILISATION LEADER 288 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 312 REFERENCES 314 Acknowledgments: This doctoral researchwould not have been possible without the help and assistance of a number of people. I first owe my gratitude to Veronica, my life "compaftera" and moral support during the cyclical crises that inexorably affect all those involved in such a long and uncertain time of research. She has been the best interpret of my feelings in every moments of the research and she has sensibly given her opinions on all my concerns and worries. I hope to have supported her in the same way during the last years. Guglielmo Meardi and Ana Dinerstein have supervised my thesis. I would like to nominate them "supervisors of the year" because of their wise and always fundamental activity. Both have been very accurate scrutinisers of the thesis challenging my job constantly and never imposing their opinions. From this dialectic I have profoundly learned. Paul Edwards and Anthony Ferner with their comments on previous drafts of the thesis also contributed to strength my research ideas. A special mention deserves my friend and almost "third supervisor" Pablo Ghigliani. I learned from him not to take things for granted, not to think I have no prejudices and to go beyond the appearancesbefore interpretating the social reality surrounding us. Discussions with him have always been enlightening and our common work in LabourAgain, a source of constant intellectual improvement and enjoyment. My culinary creations might I have partially paid him back. Workers in the FIAT and Renault plants have generously provided the empirical base for this research. I remain profoundly in debt with all of them and with all the people that have accompanied my stay in Cordoba. In particular I would like to mention Pablo Fernandez, Carlos Gallo, Virginia and Florencia Rozza, Susana Fiorito, Raul Rodriguez. Dunng my visits to England I have always enjoyed the wan-n and fraternal hospitality of Bernard and Maria. I never felt myself uncomfortable while staying in their house and I remember all these moments with pleasure and gratitude. I cannot forget Stathis, its activism within the Solo Amore Society, its perplexity and sarcasm about the "book" he thought I was writing. A special mention for Michael and Caroline, who accepted the onerous and unrewarding task of revising my written English throughout the thesis. Last but not least I want to thank my parents for their past, current and future patience. Being Social Sciences researchers is often an economically risky business but at least in my case a personal rewarding experience. That is the most important thing for their patience to be justified. 2 Abstract: in this research is provided a comparative analysis of workers' mobilisation through a qualitative interpretation of processes, dynamics and effects of collective action in two car multinationals in Cordoba, Argentina, during 1996/1997. What drives workers to periodically contest their surrounding reality and how do they structure their protests? The thesis is based on the view that conflict is inevitable, mobilisation representing one possible forin of it, due to the position workers have in the employment relation and for the constant existence of a gap between social needs and commodities produced within capitalist systems. Mobilisation is based on these theoretical objective conditions but subject do not immediately realise this and in the same terms, the process of collective protest implying in itself a deeper consciousness among workers of the meaning of their action. When subjects contest the inevitability of the social system surrounding them remains unpredictable, but the thesis has identified some factors whose absence or presence profoundly influences the chances for collective action to start and be maintained. At the same time the emphasis on the factors that are obstacles to mobilisation allows us to understand the concept of solidarity and its importance within the same process of mobilisation. Contrary to theoretical perspectives that intend collective action as based on individuals' sense of injustice, this thesis emphasisesthe need for a reconceptualisation of solidarity within a theory of mobilisation. More generally the thesis calls for a re-evaluation of collective action as a process intrinsically collective whose nature disappears within a social 3 context that constantly tends to individualise and divide. The case of Argentina and the historical perspective within which the mobilisations analysed are inserted, invite us to reconsider the role of traditional trade unions as organisersof protest and the relations between isolated workers' struggles and more generalised social protests. 4 Introduction: This researchstarted in October 2000 as a comparison of labour relations in two factories owned by the same multinational, FLAT, in Brazil and Argentina. The original idea was to look at the forms and methods of adaptation to new working practises used by trade unions and workers of the same company but within different industrial relations environnients. The research seemed initially feasible as access to the plants for interviews and data collection was guaranteed by previously established relations with executives of the same enterprise. But as often happens to those who investigate into sensitive business areas, the economic crisis of the company produced, with workers' redundancies and plant closures, management's decision to suspend any co-operation with researchers and, in my case, making it impossible to enter into the factories and develop the empirical part of the research. Dunng November 2001 and February 2002 1 did the first field trip to Cordoba as a sort of ritual way to put an end to my original research project but also with the aim and hope of finding sufficient elements for a reformulation of the whole dissertation. I needed more details to explain myself why a modem plant inaugurated in 1997 and built to employ 5000 people and to produce 120000 cars a year was, after less than four years, practically inactive. I was not certainly interested to write a thesis on how this happened.