Laboring for Unity

LABORING FOR UNITY By LANCE COMPA -n 9.V, Legendary voice of unity: Clotario Brest of the CUT HE HEADQUARTERS OF CHILE'S NATION- vinces," insists CNT president Manuel Bustos on the T al workers command is a leaky-roofed, one-story strike call. "This can't just be a Santiago action." converted warehouse on a side street in an aging sec Bustos is a 40-year-old textile worker and a battle- tion of Santiago. Exposed plumbing and wiring con hardened veteran of the struggle against Pinochet. He duits scar the walls and ceiling. Partitions separate has spent nearly three years in prison for trade union makeshift offices. Nineteen CNT leaders pack a small and political organizing since the military coup of conference room for an executive council meeting. 1973. Before then, Bustos was a rank and file leader in Colorful posters cover the walls. Most recall events the giant Sumar textile mill, one of the biggest work demanding libertad, orpaz or justicia under the ruling sites in Chile. A Christian Democrat, he opposed the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who Communist and Socialist Party leaders of the textile overthrew the constitutionally elected government of union and many policies of Allende's Popular Unity Salvador Allende in 1973. One large work commemo coalition. Today, however, Bustos stands for unity rates the one hundredth anniversary of Chicago's with the Left, reflecting a CNT goal of rebuilding a Haymarket rally and its hanged martyrs that gave rise broad, representative labor movement. to the May 1 workers' holiday. It is July 1987, winter in Santiago, and the leaders of OURTEEN YEARS AFTER THE MILITARY Chile's largest labor grouping are planning two impor F coup the Chilean people are still seeking the road tant steps in months to come: an October 7 national back to democracy. Yet finding that road requires a protest strike and a 1988 founding convention for a new strong, democratic, united labor movement voicing the central labor body. "We have to be strong in the pro aspirations of working people. To achieve that goaL- MARCH/APRIL 1988 21 Chile Chilean labor leaders have to resolve- important ten Workers Federation of Chile (FOCH), the country's sions in the unions' relationship to political parties, the first national labor organization, in 1907. In its begin role of union officials who are also committed political ning years the FOCH identified itself with the reform partisans and the balance between political and ist, middle-class dominated Democratic Party. But in economic demands. Ironically, these are the issues that 1912 the FOCH pulled out to create the Socialist Work most troubled the labor movement under the Popular ers Party ' 'because the Democratic Party has never oc Unity (UP). cupied itself with organizing the workers for the de Through decades of trade union struggles Chilean fense of their economic interest" and "because the workers had succeeded in shaping a dynamic labor party in its many conventions has refused to establish a movement that played a decisive role in electing Sal- program of workers' economic demands."1 ^vadbfÂllendeîrFlWOT Unions prospered^dunrTg The" After the SovieTRevolution, the Socialist Workers three years of UP rule. Membership rose dramatically. Party, like socialist groupings in many countries, be Unions were consulted as never before on important came the Communist Party. Union leaders were elected government policy and on key management moves in to parliament from working class areas where the Chi newly nationalized companies. Union leaders were lean Workers Federation was active. Both the federa brought into state posts to administer labor-related pro tion and the party grew steadily through the early grams. But the infusion of new members, new chal 1920s. lenges and new responsibilities also created fresh prob In 1933 various independent Marxist groupings lems that the unions were struggling to address when formed the Socialist Party of Chile. Some were influ the military took over. enced by Trotsky or anarcho-syndicalists. Some were breakaway Communists and others on the left who HE FRAYED STATE OF THE CNT NERVE were uncomfortable with the role of the Third Interna T center reflects the Chilean labor movement today, tional in party affairs. Many were intellectuals and torn by military rule and its brutal repression. Before middle-class youth radicalized by the experience of the the coup, over a million workers in some ten thousand Depression and unhappy with the Radical Party, which workplaces—more than 40% of Chile's workforce— was by then the anti-clerical standard bearer of belonged to the United Workers Central (CUT). Join liberalism in Chilean political life. ing trade unionists of differing ideologies and philoso phies in a single body, the CUT was perhaps unique in HE SOCIALIST PARTY FIRST ORGANIZED Latin America in its commitment to labor unity. T a rival trade union federation to compete for The smashing of Chilean democracy by the military worker support, splitting the movement at a time when, in 1973 carried with it—not as a byproduct of the coup in the Depression, organizing and bargaining gains but as a strategic objective—the destruction of or were few. But with the growth of Popular Front senti ganized labor and the imprisonment, torture, exile and ment the split was repaired. Communists and Socialists murder of thousands of union activists. Today about formed the Confederation of Chilean Workers (CTCH) 400,000 workers, barely 10% of the employed work in 1936, though each maintained a separate faction in force—another million are effectively unemployed— the new body. belong to unions in fewer than 3,000 enterprises. They Economically weakened by the Depression, workers are divided among different federations and indepen were forced to seek protection in the political arena. A dent labor groupings. The CNT is the largest and most Popular Front government led by the Radical Party representative, but important sections of the labor with Communist and Socialist participation prevailed movement are estranged from the CNT because its in the national elections of 1938. Important economic leadership includes Communist and Socialist Party ac reforms were enacted, expanding social programs and tivists. extending state intervention in the economy. The Com But the militant posters and upbeat banter among munists and Socialists formally left the government in CNT leaders also reflect the spirit and hope that charac 1941 but continued to vote with the majority for reform terize the movement. In this modest setting union lead legislation. ers plan strategies and make decisions that will go far From 1938 to 1946, the tendency of organized labor to determine the fate of their country. Chile's social and the two Left parties to focus their work in the legis and political history—and its future—cannot be under lative and administrative process was reinforced. A na stood apart from the story of trade unionism and work tional health service was created; a young Socialist ing class consciousness. deputy, Dr. Salvador AUende, was named minister of health. Wage and price regulations were extended. The XTENSIVE ORGANIZING AND MOBILIZING sueldo vital, a minimum wage for white collar work E among Chilean laborers, especially in northern ers, was instituted. Consistent with the broad range of nitrate mines largely controlled by British capital, had forces allied against fascist Germany and Japan, a cli been going on for decades when unionists created the mate of widely heralded "social peace" replaced open 22 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS class struggle as the hallmark of Chilean political cul and their unions again found themselves dependent on ture. the political parties rather than their own organizing and bargaining resources for economic protection. UST AS THE ANTI-FASCIST ALLIANCE BE- In the 1964 elections Allende clearly would have J gan falling apart after the war, Chile's political con won another three-way contest. Fearing this result, the sensus and truce between the Communist and Socialist Right threw its support to Eduardo Frei in a two-man parties were violated in 1946. A labor gathering was . race. Frei won with 56% of the vote, to Allende's 39%. broken up by police, with five demonstrators killed. A The Frei regime began with broad support and high general strike was called, but disagreements over hopes, even among workers who had supported whether to prolong it led to a new, open split between Allende and the FRAP coalition of Left parties. Frei lhenSîali^_a^_th^ComrnmiSts~iin;he labor move campaigned on a reformist platform stressing justice ment and the collapse of the CTCH. and land redistribution. But early in his -rule eight cop The 1952 presidential elections saw a substantial vic per miners were killed and forty injured in what labor' tory for Carlos Ibanez, a retired Army general who had saw as a strike-breaking massacre. been key in the upheaval of the late 1920s. He won on The Army's move against striking miners took on a populist-tinged platform with some Socialist support. added significance because of copper's historical im In a poor fourth, with 5.5% of the vote, came Salvador portance. Nearly all of Chile's foreign trade, and much Allende, candidate of a Left coalition barred by law of its domestic economy, depended on the copper in from including Communists. dustry. And miners were viewed as the "shock troops" In 1953 Chilean unions healed their rupture to create of Chilean labor, much like U.S. coal miners in the the United Workers Central (CUT). This new national early 20th century. Geographically isolated, they took union federation grouped Communists, Socialists, on some attitudes of a labor elite, yet knew that Chilean Radicals, Christian Democrats and other political ten workers looked to them and their union for leadership.

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