Peter Winn

Victims of the Chilean miracle: workers and neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, 1973-2002

Chile was the first major Latin American nation to carry out a complete neo-liberal transformation. Its policies - encouraging foreign investment, privatizing public sector companies and services, lowering trade barriers, reducing the size of the state, and embracing the market as a regulator of both the economy and society - produced an economic boom that some have hailed as a miracle to be emulated by other Latin American countries. But how have Chiles millions of workers, whose hard labor and long hours have made the miracle possible, fared under this program?Through empirically grounded historical case studies, this volume examines the human underside of the Chilean economy over the past three decades, delineating the harsh inequities that persist in spite of growth, low inflation, and some decrease in poverty and unemployment. Implemented in the 1970s at the point of the bayonet and in the shadow of the torture chamber, the neoliberal policies of Augusto Pinochets dictatorship reversed many of the gains in wages, benefits, and working conditions that Chiles workers had won during decades of struggle and triggered a severe economic crisis.Later refined and softened, Pinochets neo-liberal model began, finally, to promote economic growth in the mid-1980s, and it was maintained by the center-left governments that followed the restoration of democracy in 1990. Yet, despite significant increases in worker productivity, real wages stagnated, the expected restoration of labor rights faltered, and gaps in income distribution continued to widen.To shed light on this history and these ongoing problems, the contributors look at industries long part of the Chilean economy - including textiles and copper - and industries that have expanded more recently - including fishing, forestry, and agriculture. They not only show how neoliberalism has affected Chiles labor force in general but also how it has damaged the environment and imposed special burdens on women. Painting a sobering picture of the two Chiles - one increasingly rich, the other still mired in poverty - these essays suggest that the Chilean miracle may not be as miraculous as it seems.

The Urban Working Class and Social Protest in Latin America

Recent events in Latin America have underscored the political impor tance of the urban working class, whether as protagonists of social protest or as targets of military repression. At the same time, the development of promis ing new approaches to the study of urban workers in Europe and the United States has transformed a neglected subject into a frontier of scholarship, an example which has begun to inspire a new generation of Latin Americanists. This conjunction of political concern and scholarly opportunity promp ted a workshop on The Urban Working Class and Social Protest in Latin America at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., on November 30 and December 1,1978. The workshop was convened at the intiative of Eugene Sofer and Alexander Wilde of the Center. Eighteen specialists from the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Cuba, and Italy participated in the meeting. Most of them contributed papers, which were circulated in advance of the gathering and which will be available from the Center as Working Papers. The workshops underlying hope was that bringing together some of the leading students of the urban working class in Latin America with representa tive practitioners of the new labor studies in Europe and the United States would facilitate an assessment of the state of the field, an exploration of the most promising new approaches, and a definition of the most important ques tions for future research. Although the colloquium did not fulfill all of these expectations, it gave promise of important new developments in the field. A mixture of the old and the new in labor studies, the workshop itself exemplified the Janus-headed character of contemporary scholarship. Al though several examples of new approaches were presented, most of the papers were limited to the traditional focus on unions, leaders, and parties. The workshop prospectus, prepared by Sofer, had encouraged participants to abandon this older perspective in favor of the concern with culture and cons ciousness viewed from below that typifies the new labor studies in Europe and the United States. It was striking how difficult this reorientation proved to be in practice. In some cases, the spirit was willing but the pull of tradition was

Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Stunning for its magisterial sweep Americas is the most authoritative history to date of contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean. From Mexico to Tierra del Fuego, from Cuba to Trinidad and Tobago, Americas weaves a captivating narrative that analyzes the historical, demographic, political, social, cultural, religious, and economic trends in the region. With incisiveness and clarity, Peter Winn offers commanding analyses of, among other subjects: the first half of the century, when Latin America and the Caribbean assumed a new place in the world order, only to have prosperity shattered by the Great Depression and World War II; the Cold War era, when the regions economic and political systems were in disarray; the vast migration of peoples throughout the continent; the shaping of racial and ethnic identities through rural transformation and urban opportunities; the role of women as they challenge stereotypes about gender and the family; she influence of the Catholic Church and of evangelical and spiritualist sects; the extraordinary cultural ferment in the area; the three political upheavals that have shaped contemporary Latin American history - Mexico in the 1910s, Cuba in 1959, and Nicaragua in 1979; and the powerful drive for democracy and economic independence that resonates throughout the hemisphere today. Americas gives an indispensable overview of the similarities and differences among the thirty-three countries and half-billion people who inhabit a region that has played a crucial role in shaping the history of the modern world.

Work and Democracy in Socialist Cuba. By Linda Fuller. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. Pp. xx, 274.)

This fine study of democracy in production relations in Cuba compares the 1960s with the period from 1970 to the mid-1980s. The author draws on worksite observations and open-ended interviews with workers in Cuba conducted in 1982 and 1983; on primary sources, including the Cuban union newspaper Trabajadores; and on extensive review of existing literature. Examining in detail both the institutional framework and the practice of decision-making in the realm of production, Fuller argues that democratization advanced significantly after 1970. She attributes increased workplace democracy to the responsiveness of the Cuban revolutionary leadership to the mobilized masses, reflected in the decision after 1970 to revitalize the unions and decentralize economic planning. In examining union functions and organization, Fuller notes the tension between the unions simultaneous attempts to serve as workers defenders and advocates before managers, state representatives, and politicos and as collaborators with these same people in decision making at the worksite and beyond (p. 33). She suggests that after 1970 the Cuban Workers Federation (CTC) became increasingly concerned not just with increasing production, but also with defending workers rights. This evolving role is illustrated by a revealing chapter on labor disputes, which in the 1970s were resolved by work councils composed of workers elected at the workplace. The author quotes a teacher who says of the councils, Nobody really wants the job. But, he added, everyone recognizes that its better than having the boss do it (p. 128). Fuller argues that workplace democracy was also enhanced by the shift from the centralized budgetary finance system of planning promoted by Guevara in the 1960s, to the cost accounting system (SDPE) that gave substantial independence to individual enterprises after 1975. The argument is not that decentralization automatically increased democracy, but rather that it helped dispel the old assumption that the interests of workers and managers should be identical under socialism. A degree of enterprise control over earnings gave both unions and administrators more incentive to deal with conflicts at the worksite. Exploring the relation between union and party structures, the author notes the broadening of party membership in the 1970s, and a unique member selection procedure that relied increasingly on nomination by workers assemblies. At least as interesting as the formal party structure and membership is the picture that emerges from the authors interviews. Approaching party members at the workplace is seen as one of the multiple routes available to workers with problems (p. 91), according to a typical informant, and numerous examples are cited in which unions appeal for help from the local party nucleus to support workers demands and resolve complex problems at the workplace (pp. 154-59). The richness of this sociological approach helps support the authors conclusion that a reservoir of mutual goodwill and respect between leaders and citizens explains why Cuban responses to the problems of absenteeism and low productivity were notably more democratic than in Eastern Europe or China (p. 184). Fuller forcefully makes the point (pp. 109-10, 179-82) that decentralizing reforms alone do not ensure democracy, and indeed may only reinforce the power of management and party cadre if the economic reforms are not preceded by strengthening of unions and workplace decision-making mechanisms. One contribution of this book is the valuable new research on Cuban labor relations it presents, with a scope that complements more microlevel studies (such as Gail Lindenberg, The Labor Union in the Cuban Workplace, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 20, No. 1 [Winter 1993]). Fullers carefully documented and reasoned analysis of the evolving Cuban union and party structures offers a nuanced alternative to the work of those Cubanologists who view every institution as a mechanism of elite control. Second, this work makes a persuasive case for broadening the definition of democracy beyond governmental institutions to include social practice and the realm of production. Third, in documenting democratiza-