This study is divided into two parts, the first being a brief history of peasant and agricultural coalitions in Guatemala, and the second an analysis of the Department of Escuintla, a municipio and a finca therein. The historical portion is useful insofar as it concerns peasants (not wage earners) and specifically in attempting to bring it up to the time of the study (1967). The material on sindicatos (labor unions) is very defective since the author did not use materials from the Ministry of Economy which would have permitted her to find almost ten times more such organizations than the 36 which she reports for the 1946-54 period.
The study of the contemporary situation in Escuintla concludes that labor unions and organizations are to be found mainly on those farms having large and permanent laboring populations, and that where unions do exist, there tends to be more initial conflict brought to court, but that gradually the number of conflicts subsides. In general, there are very few such organizations currently. The study also deals with cooperatives.
