On September 30, 1912, one of the most emblematic organizations of the Argentine
Regional Workers Federation was born. On that date, more than a century ago, thefirst union of motor transport drivers was established and over the years itbecame a key pillar of the proletarian struggles in the city of Buenos Aires. Itis impossible, for reasons of space, to recount all the actions carried out bythis organization or to do justice to the thousands of militants who made up itsranks, therefore, we are only going to review some milestones in its history, inorder to offer a profile of its historical action. ---- The birth of this unionresponds to the expansion of automobiles as a means of public transport in themain city of Argentina. Organizing within it the taxi drivers (or "rental cars",as they were called at the time), the bus employees, then, and finally thoselinked to the auto-collective. Inside it, truck drivers dedicated to thetransport of goods were also organized, who contributed to the unionization ofworkers in factories in the automotive industry, such as General Motors,Firestone and the International Harvester Company. In this sense, thisorganization played a very important role in supporting the conflicts developedby other FORA unions, expressing their solidarity by refusing to transport theproducts of the companies in conflict[1].The Unión Chauffeurs Resistance Society agreed to join the FORA on February 5,1923, thus organically linking itself to the anarchist-leaning labor movement.Already during the 1930s, this union came to represent one of the strongestbastions within the Federation, both because of the number of members it groupedtogether and because of the visibility that its public interventions gave it.Since the Uriburu dictatorship, this union has been persecuted by the newpolitical authorities, representing emblematic cases of repression. For example,in December 1930 three of its members were almost shot in compliance with themilitary decree dictated by the new authorities, being saved thanks to a wave ofpopular demands that led the government to reverse the measure, commuting thesentence of the drivers (Ares, Montero and Gayoso) for the prison sentence inUshuaia[2].Despite the fact that a large number of the members of this union were harassed,detained and deported in large numbers, during 1931 they managed to put down theattempt to impose a "book of good conduct" on them, which would be granted by thePolice based on the history of the drivers who requested their professionaldriving license.Then, with the "democratic restitution", the Justo government made a qualitativeleap in terms of repression. In mid-1932, he filed a lawsuit for "illicitassociation" against this and two other FORA unions. Initially, the judicialauthorities were looking for those responsible for certain crimes, such as themurder of a baker and the attacks on buses belonging to companies in conflict.But they quickly began to focus their attention on judging the actions of theunions involved, seeking to determine the legality or not of the means ofstruggle used by those, accusing them of being a criminal organization, that is,an "illicit association".During this process, the drivers' premises were raided. Going to letterhead theirpublications with the subtitle of "Secretariat closed." Finally, in 1935 thedefendants were sentenced, many of them being released because they had alreadyserved the years of prison granted, while many others were immediately deportedto their countries of origin (mostly to Spain).[3]In the second half of the thirties the Chauffeur Union was involved in one of themost important popular campaigns of the decade, the fight against the transportmonopoly. The conflict originated from the claim of the Compañía de TranvíasAnglo Argentina Ltd. of the City of Buenos Aires to "coordinate" the differentpublic transport services of the city -subways, buses, trams, taxis and buses-with the in order to order the growing chaotic traffic and avoid the competitioncaused by the means of transport that were out of its control, that is, theautomobiles. As a sign of protest, the drivers carried out strikes and publicitycampaigns about the damages of the monopoly among users and the rest of thepopulation.Of course, when we speak of a popular campaign, we are referring to a combinationof efforts that went beyond the actions undertaken by the FORA union. Forexample, in this campaign the other drivers' union, the Federation of CollectiveCar Lines (FLAC), with a socialist tendency, and the formation of solidarityentities such as the "Inter-Union Committee against the Transport Monopoly",played a very important role. made up of 36 unions of different ideologicaltendencies, or the "Popular Committee against Monopoly", made up of political andcultural associations of various kinds. But once the "coordination" law wasapproved, the State had the power to expropriate the vehicles that did not jointhe new company. This is how, when the attempts at political negotiation promotedby the reformist sectors failed, the forum's preaching of combating theexpropriation process through direct action gained momentum.[4]Despite the retraction suffered by FORA in subsequent years, during the firstyears of the Peronist government, this union was able to channel the claim madeby taxi drivers in the face of a city provision that imposed restrictions ontheir work. Then, until the 1960s, it managed to maintain its influence in somelines of groups, but progressively the legal norms of the prevailing trade unionmodel reduced the possibilities of greater insertion in the activity.The trajectory promoted by the Union Chauffeurs is worthy of being taken as anexample of union action. Its organizational actions shaped the cooperative systemthat the collectives developed in their early years, giving them a horizontal andnon-profit organization. His solidarity intervention made other guilds growthanks to his support. The dedication of its militants manifested the deeplibertarian convictions that flowed through its ranks, being part of this unionthe majority of the forum members who traveled to Spain to offer their support tothe revolutionary process unleashed during the Civil War. The demand for directaction was not just a written word for its members, and numerous facts bearwitness to this.More than a century after its birth, we believe it is extremely important toreturn to those experiences so as not to take the current state of the labormovement for granted, tied to various economic and political interests. As seenin some lines of current collectives, the drivers still have much to contributeto the whole of the workers' struggles. To them, our recognition.[1]Proof of this was the emblematic conflict with General Motors in 1929, whichwas originally declared by the Metallurgical Resistance Society.[2]Among them is one of the first public statements made by the new CGT, in whichit asked "clemency to the healthy forces of the country"[3]For more information on this judicial process, you can consult the previousnumber (No. 92) of this same newspaper.[4]On this process, you can consult the research carried out by Claudia SantaCruz, entitled Resistance and expropriation. The strike of collective cartransport workers in 1942.https://organizacion-obrera.fora.com.ar/2022/09/05/la-organizacion-obrera-al-volante/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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