The labor movement of Argentina is probably the best-researched group of its kind in Latin America. A number of Argentine scholars, some of whom have themselves been participants in the movement, have written valuable histories and specialized studies, and several North American students of Latin America have also made contributions to the growing body of literature on the subject. The present volume is a valuable contribution in the field, written by a North American, but published in Spanish.
Hobart Spalding Jr., of the faculty of Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, has brought together a large number of documents covering a great variety of aspects of the conditions of the Argentine workers during a bit more than two decades. Although the volume concentrates on the organized labor movement and its activities, it also contains interesting information on the working and living conditions of the workers, particularly the immigrants, during the period covered. For instance, it includes sample individual contracts signed by workers, binding them to semi-servile conditions, as well as interesting information on a rent strike in the slums of Buenos Aires in 1905-1906, with extensive descriptions of the kinds of housing then available for the workers.
Some aspects of the early Argentine labor movement which have not generally been dealt with by other historians of the subject are covered by Professor Spalding. For example, there is an extensive series of documents dealing with the Catholic labor groups of the time, and another dealing with the “yellow” labor organizations established by the employers as a means of fighting the real unions.
The book begins with a historical introduction of almost one hundred pages by Professor Spalding. This deals not only with the development of the labor movement during the period, but also with the sociological and economic influences which were molding the Argentine work force, particularly in the urban areas, during those years. Although limited in time, this is certainly one of the best surveys of Argentine labor available either in Spanish or English. Each part of the document collection is also prefaced by a short introduction by Spalding which serves to place the documents involved in the general perspective of the work as a whole.
The amount of research which went into this collection was prodigious. The sources are wide ranging, from labor, anarchist, and socialist newspapers, to official publications of the National Labor Department, to Church periodicals, to employer publications. Some excerpts are even included from some of the earlier historians of Argentine labor. All of this disparate material is brought together by Professor Spalding in a coherent and orderly fashion, so that the volume constitutes a meaningful whole. It is to be recommended to anyone who is concerned with “the social problem” in Argentina which constitutes such an important background to the rise of Juan Perón and the trends of more recent Argentine politics; and to those interested in comparative labor movements.
