WORLD WORLDWIDE ARGENTINA News Journal Update - (en) Argentina, FAR, AGITACIÓN #2: May 1st in Argentine history: from unity to fragmentation; from struggle to cooptation. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 May 1st in the history of our country has been a date of emblematic struggles, of

conquests, of anti-dictatorial resistance, but also of bloody repression, of
disputes between the workers' leaderships and even of attempts to resignify
absurd or unrelated to the interests of the workers. Thus, analyzing this date
over the years, the history of the labor movement itself is reflected, ranging
from days of massiveness and combativeness, unified demonstrations with the
presence of all trade union sectors, to institutionalist and/or electoralist
acts. Also date of completely fragmented and unknown acts, or of practically zero
activity.
With our sights always set on recovering this date, not only symbolically but as
an action to demonstrate the strength and unity of the labor movement against the
dominant sectors and in rejection of this ruthless and inhuman system, we at
Agitación intend to summarize some of deeds of greater combative relevance in the
history of our country -pointing out their legacy- in contrast to the periods of
greater passivity of Argentine unionism.
Going back to the origins, from the events in Chicago, only three years had
passed, when the International Labor and Socialist Congress, and various trade
union organizations around the world, proclaimed the date as Labor Day, in memory
of those who They died fighting for the eight-hour day. Thus, in 1890 in
different parts of the world, working sectors coming from anarchism and socialism
will shoulder the organization of acts and mobilizations. The momentum that this
proclamation had in our country stands out here, with impressive acts in the
towns of Bahía Blanca, Chivilcoy, the City of Buenos Aires and Rosario, one of
the busiest in the country -with more than 1000 attendees-.
By that time, the dominant sectors represented by the roquista doctrine and the
oligarchic regime had already begun to take note of the danger posed by the
worker organization and solidarity. In addition to the persecution and
repression, and the prelude to the Residency Law, a campaign to stigmatize the
immigrant labor sectors had begun. After 1891, the acts will have an increasing
presence, highlighting the participation of sectors organized in unions, among
them brickmakers, textiles, chemists, commerce, stevedores, and bakers.
After the explosion of labor conflict during the last years of the 19th century
and the beginning of the 20th, expressed in the shocking national strikes of
railway and port workers, the national State began to take particular vengeance
on the commemoration of May 1st. The best-known facts will be the repressions of
1904 or the Red Week of 1909. By 1910, the dominant sectors concerned about the
climate of social boiling close to the centenary of the May Revolution, will take
to the streets the Patriotic League that will violate protesters and will break
into union premises under the protection of the police.
For almost two decades, the following acts and mobilizations for May 1 functioned
as a sounding board for worker solidarity, in a context with hundreds of
political prisoners (Ushuaia, Eusebio Magnasco, the Bragado Prisoners) and bloody
repressions (Workshops Vasena, Rebel Patagonia, Forestry, Jacinto Arauz), the
latter mostly led by a Radical Government.
But after the 1930 coup, the culminating point of the repressive escalation, and
after the irruption of a new workers' union like the CGT (which would bring
together the majority of the union forces), the acts of May 1st unfortunately
became in scenarios of exposure and dispute of the electoral front projects of
the PC and the PS, at times when it was most necessary to reinforce criteria of
unity and class independence within the labor movement, which was risking the
stoppage in milestones of resistance such as the strike of loggers in 1934 or
construction in 1936.
In the early 1940s, moved by the outcome of the Spanish Civil War and the start
of World War II, union organizations focused their May Day events on repudiating
the advance of Nazism. In Argentina by then, Peronism had entered the scene, with
the support of numerous union organizations and popular sectors.

With little incidence of anarchism in the labor movement, and the socialist and
communist sectors enlisted as the caboose of an anti-Peronist electoral front,
the central act of these dates will turn to a great official demonstration
-headed by Perón and the leadership of the CGT- expressing a strategy based on
class conciliation and the pitiful subordination of unionism to a national interest.
After successive coups and internships, it will not be until the Onganía
dictatorship that the commemoration of May 1 will be definitively prohibited, for
the first time in the history of our country, granting the date to the Catholic
Church for the celebrations of San José Obrero. But on May 1, 1968, combative
sectors of the labor movement, confronted with union collaboration with the
dictatorship, will come out publicly with the proclamation of the CGT de los
Argentinos calling to "oppose the dictatorship" and to promote an "agrarian
reform". In addition, the document insisted that "the worker does not want a
solution from above, because he has been suffering from it for twelve years and
it is useless...". Finally, he calls to "fight harder than ever for
freedom[knowing that]only the people will save the people." This worker
proclamation will be a transcendental prop for the decline of the Onganía
dictatorship.
With the return of Perón to the government in 1974, the official act with the
leader in the square returns, but this time it will become the sphere of internal
dispute of Peronism itself, expressed in the symbolic withdrawal of combative
groups from Plaza de Mayo confronted with Perón himself, after a fiery speech
that gave the green light to state repression against the sectors in struggle of
the labor movement and popular organizations.
With the advent of the 1976 coup and the extermination plan, union action and
acts were practically impossible. However, unions such as the Commerce Employees
risked commemorating the date in hiding, while the National Labor Commission was
established as the collaborationist tool with the military regime. The first
milestone of union resistance to the dictatorship will come on the eve of May 1,
with the general strike of April 27, 1979. Organized in secrecy due to the arrest
of various union leaders, the strike will install the slogans of wage increases,
better working conditions, freedom of political prisoners and recovery of
constitutional guarantees.
After the return to democracy, May 1, 1985 will coincide with an Act in the midst
of the takeover of the multinational Ford by combative sectors of SMATA and other
unions. The context was already marked by Alfonsín's adjustment and hunger
policies, which would deepen in the following years, and which would provoke
hundreds of sectoral strikes and 13 general strikes as a response.
During Menemism, the fragmentation that was already coming within the union
organizations and articulations penetrated deeply. This is how during this
decade, marked by the enormous advance of neoliberal policies, different actors
reignited the fire of struggle and active resistance, using May 1st as a platform
to denounce privatizations, layoffs and impoverishment policies. From the acts of
the new CTA to the teaching White Tent of the CTERA, going through the historic
takeover of Aurora Grundig in Tierra del Fuego, the resistance of the YPF workers
in the north and Patagonia, to the irruption of the Movements of Unemployed, new
actors in resistance to neoliberal scrapping. During 2001 the acts of May 1st
throughout the country, from different calls, denounced -and pre-announced- a
social situation that was not enough.
 From here, with the irruption of Kirchnerism, the union and social organizations
deepened their fragmentation, expressed in the different acts and activities
scheduled for that specific date, without too many massive demonstrations. Only
the macrista neoliberal club perhaps generated an attempt to bet on unity back in
2016 with a unified act between the 3 factions of the CGT, the 2 CTA, social
movements and some union sectors of the Trotskyist left. The main slogans that
unified the call had to do with the rejection of economic adjustment, layoffs and
inflation. From then to date, the acts or demonstrations for May 1st have not
been so forceful or unified.
Having made this review of the history of May 1st in Argentina, the premise of
organized anarchism will be to recover this date, as a demonstration of strength
and unity of the labor movement against the dominant sectors, avoiding the
cooptation of governments. and parties that, over the decades, have managed to
divide and immobilize, injuring this slogan born in the bowels of the working class.

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