Work, Political Ideas and Class Formation in the Chilean Textile Industry 1930-1973

1. Adam Fishwick University of Sussex adf25@sussex.ac.uk Work, Political Ideas and Class Formation in the Chilean Textile Industry 1930-1973

2. Overview • Context: Beyond the Estado de Compromiso • Workers’ Newspapers: A Note on Methodology • Constructing Textile Workers • Grievances from the Factory Floor • Interpreting Discontent • The ‘Anomaly’ of Chilean Socialism • Historical Memory • The Working Class and Industrialisation in Chile

3. Beyond the Estado de Compromiso • Labour history in Chile • ‘Heroic’ versus the institutionalised phases • Limits on institutionalisation of working class struggle and persistence of autonomy • Experience of work and the politicisation of grievances, ideas and everyday struggle

4. Workers’ Newspapers: A Note on Methodology

5. Representation or formation? • Insights into the history of struggles and political moments in working class history • Insights into the politicisation of workers and their interests • Nexus of representing working class struggle and the contested meanings applied to it

6. Constructing Textile Workers

7. Grievances from the Factory Floor • Interpreting Discontent • The ‘Anomaly’ of Chilean Socialism • Historical Memory

8. Grievances from the Factory Floor • Beyond political/economic dichotomy • Concerns over wages and work persistent • 1930s target employer abuses in early formation of the industry • 1940s/1950s shift towards concrete targeting government and foreign firms • 1970s supportive of government and pushes for further reforms

9. Interpreting Discontent • Legalism and radicalism as interpreting grievances and relations with state and capital • 1930s – 1950s sees shift in legalism from supportive of Labour Code to pressure for legal-institutional implementation • 1970s strong contrast particularly stark between support for legal gains made in the state and radical factory occupations

10. The ‘Anomaly’ of Chilean Socialism • Anti-imperialism, nationalism and, democracy • Anti-imperialism in the industry emerges in the 1940s and consolidated in 1970s • Nationalism in a left-wing form supported national industrialists in the 1950s and nationalisation/socialisation in 1970s • Democracy begins in 1930s with right to unionise, in 1950s against repression, and 1970s in conflicts over worker participation in production

11. Historical Memory • Explicit formative role of the workers’ press • Applying political-theoretical ideas to struggles – Marx, Lenin etc. • National political history – Recabarren, Nitrate Workers, Union History • International political struggle – Franco, May Day, Soviet Union

12. Working Class Formationand Contested Industrialisation

13. Shifting grievances reflecting changes in industry and political priorities • Continuity of political interpretation • Influence of political-ideological context • Politicisation and construction of collective historical memory • Persistence of radical conflict beyond and beneath the institutions of the working class