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Trends in Registered Mexican Labor Conflictos, 1927-1931 Marcos Tonatiuh Aguila M. Departamento de Economía UAM-Azcapotzalco
Introduction
This article demonstrates how an
increasing level of labor conflict, especially at the shoppression, affected
labor behavior in several key sectors of the Mexican economy: railroads, oil,
textiles, and mining, in particular. This interpretation of an increasing
level of confrontation in labor-capital relations (mostly at the workplace and
in "indoor" relations-hips) before the emergence of the Cardenista
regime, helps explain how the years commonly
associated with open strike activities and collective actions which developed in
1934 and culminated with the oil expropriation
of 1938, actually characterized the entire decade of the thirties as one of
great labor militancy. As will be discussed later, these years of intense labor
activity which took place within the Cardenista period have been interpreted as
the product of either of two factors. First, there may have been -it is
said- a sudden awakening of Mexican workers able to take advantage of the
decline of the corrupt CROM leader, Luis N. Morones. Alternatively, the upheaval
has been attributed to the mobilization of workers from above led by President
Cárdenas trough his close ally Lombardo Toledano. Thus, Cárdenas is said to have
aimed at taking political advantage of increased labor power. Very little
attention, however, has been paid to the effects of changing living and economic
conditions of workers. In the argument presented here, however, the early years
of the 1930's, decisively influencing Cardenismo itself. |
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