Abstract
This chapter analyses the figures of Argentinian worker delegates at the International Labour Organization in the first half of the twentieth century. It presents worker delegates’ trajectories as part of different disputes: between ideological options in the Argentinian trade union movement, the state’s cooptation of trade union representative delegates, the international disputes of the trade union movement in a local frame, and even the dispute between the European and American trade unions and the Argentinian trade unions, seen as an imperialist imposition. This chapter also presents the Argentinian worker delegates’ disputes about the International Labour Organization’s objectives, such as the internationalisation of labour standards and regulations, and principles, such as the liberty and dignity or tripartite government, which was not exempt from anti-imperialist judgements and accusations about the ILO’s Eurocentrism.
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Notes
- 1.
Jasmien van Daele, “The International Labour Organization (ILO) in Past and Present Research,” International Review of Social History 53, no. 3 (2008): 485–511.
- 2.
OIT, Cláusulas de los tratados de paz relativas al trabajo (Geneva: Oficina Internacional del Trabajo, 1929): 5.
- 3.
G. Rodgers, E. Lee, L. Swepston, and J. van Daele, La Organización Internacional del Trabajo y la lucha por la justicia social, 1919–2009 (Geneva: OIT, 2009).
- 4.
S. Kott and J. Droux (eds.), Globalizing Social Right: The International Labour Organization and Beyond (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Sandrine Kott, “From Transnational Reformist Network to International Organization: The International Association for Labour Legislation and the International Labour Organization, 1900–1930s,” in Shaping the Transnational Sphere: Experts, Networks and Issues from the 1840s to the 1930s, eds. Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck, and Jacob Vogel (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2015): 239–258; and Véronique Plata-Stenger, “Europe, the ILO and the Wider World (1919–1954),” EGO, European History Online, http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/transnational-movements-and-organisations/international-organisations-and-congresses/veronique-plata-stenger-europe-the-ilo-and-the-wider-world-1919-1954 (2016).
- 5.
A. Stagnaro and L. Caruso, “Representantes y representaciones de Argentina en la Organización Internacional del Trabajo en la década de 1920,” Anuario Del Instituto De Historia Argentina 17, no. 1 (2017): e034, https://doi.org/10.24215/2314-257Xe032; L. Caruso and A. Stagnaro (eds.), Una historia regional de la OIT: Aportes sobre regulación y legislación del trabajo latinoamericano (La Plata: FAHCE, 2017).
- 6.
León F. Herrera and Gonzáles P. Herrera (eds.), América Latina y la Organización Internacional del Trabajo: redes, cooperación técnica e institucionalidad social, 1919–1950 (México: UMSNH, UM, UFF, 2013); González P. Herrera, “Colaboraciones técnicas y políticas trasatlánticas: América Latina y la OIT (1928–1946),” Estudios internacionales 50, no. 189 (2018): 77–96; and N. Ferreras, A. Stagnaro, and L. Caruso, A Conexão OIT-América Latina: Problemas regionais do trabalho em perspectiva transnacional (Rio de Janeiro: Mauad Editora, 2018).
- 7.
Pilar Calvo Caballero, “La OIT, universo mental y encrucijada de hechos. actitudes de patronos y obreros socialistas en los primeros años de su funcionamiento,” Studia histórica contemporánea 16 (1998): 167–184.
- 8.
N. Ferreras, “La construcción de una Communitas del Trabajo: las relaciones de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT) y América del Sur durante la década de 1930,” Dimensões 29 (2012): 3–21.
- 9.
Caruso, Laura, “Legislando en aguas profundas. La OIT, nuevas reglas para el trabajo marítimo y su desarrollo en la Argentina de la primera posguerra,” in Una historia regional de la OIT: Aportes sobre regulación y legislación del trabajo latinoamericano, eds. L. Caruso and A. Stagnaro (La Plata: FAHCE, 2017): 135–164.
- 10.
The LF was the locomotive personnel union. According to Belloni Ravest, the LF’s interest in the ILO was due to the fact that, as a large and serious union, it was already involved in international issues (H. Belloni Revest, El sindicalismo argentino en la Organización Internacional del Trabajo [Buenos Aires: S/E, 1969]: 11).
- 11.
League of Nations, International Labor Conference (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920): 109.
- 12.
The case of the French worker delegate was dealt with in the credentials committee.
- 13.
League of Nations, International Labor Conference: 112.
- 14.
League of Nations, International Labor Conference: 112.
- 15.
He was born in Genoa. He worked as a radio telegrapher, pilot and then captain. He was a founding member of the aforementioned Centre in 1918, and the first Argentine delegate to the International Transport Federation (ITF), founded in London in 1896.
- 16.
Laura Caruso, “Estado, armadores y clase obrera en la Argentina de entreguerras: la segunda Conferencia de la OIT sobre trabajo marítimo (1920),” Anuario IEHS 26 (2011): 1–23.
- 17.
Negri belonged to the management of the Union Ferroviaria, created in 1922. He was also the first General Secretary of the COA.
- 18.
Crónica Mensual Departamento Nacional del Trabajo (on forward: CMDNT), Sumario No. 92, Octubre, 1924 (Buenos Aires, 1924): 1433.
- 19.
La Fraternidad, Órgano de la sociedad de personal ferroviario de locomotoras XVI, no. 335 (Buenos Aires, 20 de mayo de 1925): 15.
- 20.
L. Lauzet, Una creación obrera: El organismo Internacional del Trabajo. Su obra y porvenir (Buenos Aires: Editorial Jurídica, 1925).
- 21.
He was born in 1886 in Salviac, in the south of France. At his arrival in Argentina he worked there as a typographer and linotype maker from the age of 12 years. He was part of the revolutionary syndicalist movement, and he was one of the leaders of the general graphic strike in September 1906, and became secretary of the Graphic Federation of Buenos Aires and the Argentine Graphic Unions Federation. He was elected a member of the Federal Council of the FORA between 1918 and 1921. He had outstanding intellectual and militant work as editor of the FORA’s newspaper, La Organización Obrera. Within this union current, approaching 1921 and together with the railway man Francisco Rosanova, he was amongst the main defenders of participation in the ILO, demanding the validity and application of the 1919 conventions.
- 22.
Laura Caruso, “Obreros, delegados y corresponsales: la representación sindical argentina ante la OIT en los años 20. el caso de Luis Lauzet,” in A Conexão OIT – América Latina: Problemas regionais do trabalho em perspectiva transnacional, eds. A. Stagnaro, L. Caruso, and N. Ferreras (Rio de Janeiro: Mauad Editora, 2018): 79–99.
- 23.
Congreso de la Nación Argentina, Diario de Sesiones de la Honorable Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina (Buenos Aires: Imprenta y Encuadernación de la Cámara de Diputados, 1925): 164.
- 24.
Congreso de la Nación Argentina, Diario de Sesiones: 167.
- 25.
“Representación Obrera en las Conferencias Internacionales del Trabajo,” CMDNT, Sumario No. 99 (Mayo/1925): 1076.
- 26.
CMDNT, Sumario No. 122 (Junio/1927): 2259.
- 27.
Unión Sindical Argentia, Memoria y balance del Comité Central (Buenos Aires: USA, 1926): 40.
- 28.
Archivo Historia del Movimiento Obrero Argentino, Archivo Di Tella, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Fondo Pérez Leirós (hereafter: AMO/FPL), Box 2, Folder 1.
- 29.
“Nota para la designación de delegados a la XI Conferencia Internacional del Trabajo,” CMDNT, Sumario No. 131 (Marzo/1928): 2348.
- 30.
AMO/FPL, Box 6, Folder 3. Letter from Raul Migone to Francisco Pérez Leirós, 9.5.1936.
- 31.
AMO/FPL, Box 6 folder 3: Letter from F. Pérez Leirós to E. Kupers 18.5.1936, Letter from E. Kupers to F. Pérez Leirós, 5.5.1936, Letter from A. Staal to F. Pérez Leirós 19.5.1936, Letter from F. Pérez Leirós to A. Staal 20.7.1936, Box 6 folder 4: Letter from F. Pérez Leirós to A. Staal 1.7.1936. Letter from Migone to F. Pérez Leirós, 9.5.1936 Letter from F. Pérez Leirós to Migone, 20.7.1936. Box 16 folder 5: Letter from Migone to F. Pérez Leirós, 19.8.1936. Letter from E. Kupers to F. Pérez Leirós, 25.7.1936.
- 32.
AMO/FPL, Box 6 folder 3, Letter from F. Pérez Leirós to the ILO’s Assistant Director 30.7.1937.
- 33.
AMO/FPL Box 16 folder 5. Letter from A. Staal to F. Pérez Leirós, 19.7.1939.
- 34.
Belloni Revest, El sindicalismo argentino: 14.
- 35.
ILO, International Labour Conference: Twenty-Sixth Session, Philadelphia 1944. Record of Proceedings (Montreal: ILO, 1944).
- 36.
Alfredo Fidanza was of socialist extraction and would form in the following years part of the Workers’ Committee of Independent Union Action (COASI).
- 37.
ILO, International Labour Conference: Twenty-Sixth Session: 299.
- 38.
Belloni Revest, El sindicalismo argentine: 10.
- 39.
The meetings in Chapultepec were foreseen as previous steps for participation in what would be the United Nations Organization to be developed in 1946. Finally, Argentina declared war on the Axis on 27 March 1945 and adhered to the Chapultepec Act.
- 40.
Jouhaux was the General Secretary of the Confédération Générale du Travail.
- 41.
Hallsworth was a well-known English trade union leader and member of the ILO’s Governing Body.
- 42.
ILO, International Labour Conference: Twenty-Seventh Session, Paris 1945. Record of Proceedings (Geneva: ILO, 1946): 79, 95.
- 43.
Press clippings, epistolary exchanges and unpublished writings on the CTAL and WFTU congresses can be found in AMO/FPL Box 1 and Box 11.
- 44.
ILO, International Labour Conference: Twenty-Seventh Session: 309.
- 45.
ILO, International Labour Conference: Twenty-Seventh Session: 311.
- 46.
Stagnaro, A., “Realineamientos Internacionales: los delegados obreros argentinos en la OIT de la segunda posguerra,” in A Conexão OIT – América Latina: Problemas regionais do trabalho em perspectiva transnacional, eds. A. Stagnaro, L. Caruso, and N. Ferreras (Rio de Janeiro: Mauad Editora, 2018): 101–122.
- 47.
ILO, International Labour Conference: Twenty-Seventh Session: 215.
- 48.
ILO, International Labour Conference: Twenty-Seventh Session.
- 49.
Caruso, “Legislando en aguas profundas”.
- 50.
ILO, International Labour Conference: Twenty-Ninth Session, Montreal 1946. Record of Proceedings (Montreal: ILO, 1948): 52.
- 51.
Malvincini, faced with the attempt to exclude the CGT, maintained that the Congress belonged to the ILO and not to the CTAL. AMO/FPL Caja 1 Carpeta 7, La Nación, La delegación de la Argentina en la reunión de Mexico, 6 April 1946.
- 52.
OIT, Tercera Conferencia del Trabajo de los Estados de América miembros de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo, Actas de las Sesiones (Montreal: OIT, 1946).
- 53.
van Daele, “The International Labour Organization”.
- 54.
The delegation was also going to be composed of Libertario Ferrari, Felipe Pictromica, Manuel Bernárdez and Jesús Santamaría, but an aviation accident in the city of Natal, Brazil, took the lives of the first two, leaving the other two injured.
- 55.
ILO, International Labour Conference: Thirtieth Session, Geneva 1947. Record of Proceedings (Geneva: ILO, 1948): 358.
- 56.
AMO/FPL, Box 11, Letter from the COASI to the president of the workers group in the ILC, 17/5/1947.
- 57.
ILO, International Labour Conference: Thirtieth Session: 359.
- 58.
Delegación Obrera, 30 reunión de la Conferencia Internacional del Trabajo realizada en Ginebra, Suiza, entre el 19 de Junio y el 18 de Julio de 1947. Informe de la representación obrera argentina (Buenos Aires: undated, c. 1947): 10.
- 59.
Federico L. Burnett, XXX Conferencia Internacional del Trabajo. Apuntes y reflexiones personales de un viaje a Ginebra (Buenos Aires: S/E, 1947).
- 60.
Victoria Basualdo, “El sindicalismo ‘libre’ y el movimiento sindical argentino desde mediados de los años ´40 a mediados de los años ´50,” Anuario IEHS 28 (2014): 1–15.
- 61.
The USSR joined the ILO in 1954. Delegations from socialist countries with varying degrees of ties to the USSR participated in the 1947 Conference: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia, see further Sandrine Kott, “Par-delà la guerrefroide: Les organisations internationales et les circulations Est-Ouest (1947–1973),” VingtièmeSiècle: Revue d’histoire 109, no. 1 (2011): 142–154.
- 62.
Delegación Obrera, 30 reunión de la Conferencia Internacional: 36.
- 63.
It must be kept in mind that COASI operated from Montevideo and this city became an anti-Peronist stronghold during those years, product of the exile of several union leaders, politicians and intellectuals in the Uruguayan capital.
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Stagnaro, A., Caruso, L. (2020). The International Labour Organization as a Domesticating Arena: Argentinian Trade Unions and Workers’ Representations at the ILO in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. In: Bellucci, S., Weiss, H. (eds) The Internationalisation of the Labour Question. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28235-6_11
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