FORTY DAYS OF STRUGGLE AGAINST THE by L. E. RASIN problems with which the government is confronted and have even stimulated confrontations among various sectors of the bourgeoisie, thus feeding the atmosphere of opposition and instability. It was in this context that the Villa Constitución section of the Union Obrera Metalurgica (the meta workers union) was able in December 1974 to be legally torn from the hands of the Peronist bureaucracy that had controlled it for four years. The union elections, overwhelmingly won by the class-struggle slate (in which several left groups participated in a united manner), constituted a real triumph. The government had granted the concession of allowing the elections to be held because it expected to win them, thanks to intimidation and its power. Moreover, in the event that it lost the elecfions, it hoped that the atmosphere of terror it had succeeded in creating would compel the victors to remain totally subordinated to the bureaucracy. But that is not the way it happened. Not only did the class front triumph, but the content of its program was the expression of workers resistance to the repressive apparatus. Moreover, the triumph drew support from several small partial victories through which sectors of the workers vanguard on a national scale imposed their demands.
ARGENTINA This is what happened in the Propulsora Siderurgica and Metalurgica Santa Rosa factories. After the burial of the Pacto Social, which was supposed to forcefully regulate wages and prices, inflation began to eat away at the incomes of the workers and a mute protest began to be felt in the factories, forcing the trade-union bureaucracy to demand the convocation of parity commissions (for collective labor contracts between the unions and the employers). The government was thus harassed by the most diverse social sectors: farmers, because of the absence of price supports; merchants and middle-sized industrialists, because of the lack of supplies and the policy of discriminatory fixed prices; and now, the trade-union bureaucracy, which wanted to sell its support to the government. The response was a turn toward an "opening, " inviting the various opposition parties to discuss, organizing elections in the far-off province of Misiones in order to show concern for institutions, and, finally, accepting the convocation of the parity commissions. Nevertheless, the "open" tone of the government proved to be doubly dangerous. The regime had to make more and more promises, and it feared that it would lose control of the situation. That is why, just at the moment when it was trying to present the best democratic facade (which was only the expression of its own weakness), it unleashed the repression in Tucumán, where a mountain company of the ERP (Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo - Revolufionary Army of the People was operating, and began to dismantle the workers organizations in Ledesma, Jujuy, and Villa Constitución (attacking the metalworkers union). The unexpected response The ease with which the government attained its repressive objectives in Ledesma was due essentially to the organizational weakness of the young trade-union leadership there and to the very low political level of the rank and file in this concentration of 15,000 workers. In Ledesma, we saw the total isolation of this region from the rest of the country. On the other hand, in Villa Constitución, a city in the southern part of the province of Santa Fe, where there are several steel factories producing about half the country's steel, mostly for the automobile industry and its derivatives, the response of the 8,000 workers was a surprise for the government. The regime's operation was launched on the night of March 20. Thousands of police, federal troops, and members of the "Puma" antiriot brigade of the subprefecture and the provinces assembled in the area, attacked the houses of more than fifty militants, attacked the headquarters of the union local (which had been recently recovered from the police), 10 and brutally assaulted neighbors who had rushed to the aid of those arrested. Alberto Piccini, secretary of the union, was taken from his house and dragged by the hair fifty yards to the police cars; the same thing happened to most of the other union leaders. It was a night of terror, which ended with more than 200 assaults the following morning; in the five succeeding days there were a total of 500 arrests. Since there had not been recent conflicts between the employers of the region and the workers of the four big factories (Acindar, Marathon, Metcon, and Vilber), the government was obliged to fabricate out of whole cloth a crude justification for the terror. The operation was said to have been aimed at "dismantling a terrorist conspiracy against heavy industry in the region. " Of course, noboby believed the story of this plot, not even the metallurgy employers in the region. It is quite clear that the offensive against the workers was only a preventive blow, arranged with the prior agreement of the union bureaucracy, in order to prevent the concessions the government had been forced to grant (the parity commissions) from being used by the combative local union leaders to go beyond both the legal channeis and the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Labor. The government feared (and now fears even more) that an embryo of a workers leadership could arise in Villa Constitución capable of waging a struggle for various demands on a national scale during the period when labor contracts are being discussed. That would have unpredictable consequences. There was already a basis for this fear. The metalworker of Villa Constitución had worked out a counter draft collective labor contract that put forward demands that the government would have had great difficulty granting without facing great consequences. They asked for a 70 percent wage increase and a minimum salary of 400, 000 pesos a month (which is twice the minimum wage set by the government). But they also asked for something more important: workers control over industrial health and security and, further, workers control over the work pace. In addition to these demands, they rejected the system of production bonuses, these bonuses being one of the most usual forms of exploitation. The government feared that these objectives - difficult if not impossible to grant in Villa Constitución - would be taken up by broader sectors of the workers movement throughout the country. It feared that there would be a chain of struggles, as had occurred in previous years, and it thus preferred to launch a preventive attack. But the government failed to foresee all the consequences.
The first reaction of the workers was to occupy the Four big factories of the region, automatically halting production. After three days of hesitating, the government proceeded to dislodge the workers violently. But that triggered the longest and most active strike the Peronist government has yet faced. The new workers leaders were arrested, but they were immediately replaced by others, equally determined and effective. And although the repression continued to hit the new members of the Committee of Struggle, which was elected right at the beginning of the strike, new leaders arose out of the combative rank and file and fully assumed the functions of the arrested leaders. Four leaderships of the struggle were successively arrested, but nevertheless the Committee of Struggle continued to act clandestinely. This phenomenon, which has rarely been seen in the history of the workers struggle in Argentina, was undoubtedly the concrete expression of what the proletariat has learned from the repression it has suffered. The government had not counted on this response. Still less had it counted on the Committee of Struggle's developing a clandestine leadership capable of directing the conflict and organizing support in the neighborhoods and the neighboring villages, as well as organizing street demonstrations and responses to the parapolice gangs that were intimidating the population. The government was taken completely by surprise. It tried to go further, unleashing a ferocious terrorist campaign against the leaders and militants who were supporting the Committee of Struggle. It organized seizures and murders and planted dozens of bombs in the houses of the most combative militants. But it had to confront a new level of unexpected response. The workers organized to defend the working-class neighborhoods with armed groups, which prevented the parapolice gangs from operating of night. Several armed clashes put an end to the aims of the terrorist intimidation. The attempt to break the strike by getting the supervisory personnel and the workers of the region to go back to work was also a failure. There were not enough scabs, and the supervisory personnel were absolutely insufficient to keep the factories running. During this time, solidarity committees were spreading throughout the major regions of the country. The workers of the Indiel y de Rigolleau factory in San Justo (Buenos Aires province) organized an assembly and street demonstration for their own demands and to support Villa Constitución. The assembly and demonsfration were repressed by the police and the leaders were arrested. The workers responded with a week-long work stoppage in which the workers of the Martin Amatto factory also participated; it succeeded in winning the release of all the workers who had been imprisoned. To celebrate the triumph of the workers a truckload of food was sent to Villa Constitución. At Propulsora, another important steel plant in Buenos Aires, the workers began a work stoppage demanding wage increases and demonstrating their solidarity with Villa Constitución. The employer agreed to grant a higher than usual wage increase (130, 000 pesos a month) provided the strike were stopped. Meeting in general assembly, the Propulsora workers agreed to accept the wage increase but decided to make an important contribution to the workers of Villa so that they could continue their strike. In Rosario in the San Lorenzo industrial zone assemblies and work stoppages took place in support of the Committee of Struggle, and a general demonstration was organized in Rosario in solidarity with the striking workers. In Córdoba the workers of Fiat Grandes Motores Diesel and of Thomson Ranco held assemblies and decided to stop work in support of Villa Constitución, demanding the release of the arrested leaders. For their part, the railway workers and workers of the Fraternidad (an organization including the railway machinists) in the city of Villa Constitución itself organized so lidarity work stoppages; their leaders were also arrested and they fought to free them. During an assembly the postal workers decided not to distribute telegrams sent by the Ministry of Labor ordering the workers to go back to work. The whole population pitched in, and the merchants and small-scale producers in the region demonstrated their solidarity, sending funds and food to the Committee of Struggle. The parapolice gangs, acting under the direct instructions of the government, bombed one of the depots where food was being stored; but that only led to redoubled cooperation, and within three days all the food destroyed by the bomb had been replaced. It was put in more secure locations. The Committee of Struggle received the support of many factories around the country, which sent all sorts of aid and demonstrated their solidarity through all the means at their command. On April 30 the strike reached its fortieth day. The government was no longer able to break it. That represented a magnificent triumph for the working class of the country, which through its own forces had repulsed the regime of terror and repression imposed by the "peaple's government. " Neither the intimidation, nor the state of seige, nor the death threats, nor the tortures, nor the hundreds of attacks succeeded. Nothing could break the will to struggle of the workers of Villa Constitución. The government lost a test of strength which could constitute a real triumph for the working class, a test that by its durafion alone broke the whole system of intimidation and terror that had been imposed. For several days the government discussed and pretended to negotiate. Rocamora, minister of the interior, personally came to Villa Constitución to try
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ARGENTINA to make the workers back down. The national trade-union bureaucracy tried to stay away from the conflict; that is why it verbally requested the release of those leaders who had not been implicated in "subversive acts." The bureaucracy, more than any other force, fears the present events. The Villa Constitución section of the metalworkers union is the fourth-largest union in the country, and a brilliant triumph for the strike could have grave consequences. The clandestine organization of the rank and file and the formation of workers armed defense groups were new, more advanced developments. To this situation must be added the ever more aggressive public actions, for example, that of April 22, which ended with an armed confrontation with the police. Barricades were set up and the police were forced to withdraw to the stations. Had it not been for the torrential rain that broke out right in the middle of the clash, the consequences of the unleashed popular fury would have been incalculable. At the end of the day there were four dead and Five police wounded. There was also an attempted revolt by prisoners in the police stations, and twenty journa lists were arrested and forced to give up the films they had taken of the day's events. A new demonstration was set for May 1 to demand the release of the imprisoned trade unionists. This demonstration was prepared by the publication in the country's major daily newspapers of a wide-ranging program of struggle, drawn up at the request of the Committee of Struggle. The workers refused to back down, and their attitude grew more offensive every day. There is no doubt that the activity of the left political organizations in the region was extremely important. The Committee of Struggle and the political organizations formed the basis of the organization of the struggle. The aspiration to extend solidarity struggles has been held back by the backward political situation. Villa Constitución can serve to turn this situation around, but a lot of time will be needed for the workers vanguard and the revolutionary organizations throughout the country to actively assemble their forces and to recognize that such a possibility exists, using the Villa struggle as a starting point. The hard repression unleashed by the government has caused a real retreat by the revolutionary orga12 nizations, to which must be added the totally defensive attitude of the workers movement as a whole. Only by dint of the sacrifices and efforts of the heroic vanguard of Villa Constitución was it possible to win recognition of the fact that a new situation has been developing and that there is a potential for extending and broadening the struggles for various demands during this period before the renewal of labor contracts. It is important to stress the different reality that the machine workers of Córdoba experienced when their union was banned last September. Their strike remained completely isolated and unsupported, with the organizations of the left, victims of the repression, in full retreat. Conditions are very different today. Villa learned from the experience of SMATA (Sindicato de Mecanicos y Afines del Transporte Automotor - Union of Automotive Machinists and Allied Trades) in Córdoba and this can be seen in the various moves the workers have made and in the organizational and political results. Under these conditions, it is not only possible but more than ever necessary to coordinate solidarity with and support for Villa Constitución on a national scale, integrating into the struggle the demands of each trade union and factory that mobilizes. The government put its prestige on the line in this confrontation, and the test of strength, which was a prolonged one, did it damage. The regime concocted a story that the workers movement, the revolutionary organizations, and even the bourgeoisie and its opposition parties denied. If it wants the factories to start working again, the government now has very few solutions for getting out of the impasse apart from recognizing the triumph of the strike and releasing the prisoners. Day after day the conflict was on the first page of the newspapers, and soon the automobile industry will be paralyzed if the Villa factories do not start working again quickly. There is now a shortage of 40, 000 tons of steel, and 1,000 tons are used up without being replaced each day the strike goes on. Whatever negotiations the government may undertake, the masses of the country will see them as a triumph and will adopt the road and methods of Villa Constitución in order to push their own struggles forward. April 30, 1975
On May 8 INPRECOR had the opportunity to interview a leading member of the Liga
Comunista Revolucionaria/Euzkadi ta Askatasuna-VI (Revolutionary Communist League/
Basque Nation and Freedom-VI), sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in the Spanish state. In the interview the comrade gives some details about several the mass struggle and the