The workers' struggles were not always aimed at getting a higher salary.
It was, and is, a basic pillar of the union demands so that the supportof the workers is somewhat less pressing. Along with the demands forreducing working hours and improving health issues, they constitute thethree most common axes in union claims. ---- However, throughout historya series of proletarian struggles have been launched based on otherproblems. Among them, we can point out the recognition of the unionorganizations in formation, the respect of labor categories and theclaims against disciplinary sanctions and physical mistreatment.The proclamations raised by the workers on more than one occasion weretraversed by claims in favor of greater individual freedom, inopposition to new productive provisions covered by greater disciplineand by greater control of the workforce. All these proclamations were noless belligerent than the demands for salary increases. There is aninteresting background to the question as to which factors motivateworkers to mobilize the most, what challenges them the most or whichproduce the most indignation. On this point it is possible to visualizea component that runs through a large number of union struggles deployedaround the concept of dignity.It is understandable that when referring to the conquests aroundconcepts such as "happiness", "respect" and "freedom" their delimitationbecomes somewhat ambiguous, since when dealing with concepts of broadinterpretation they become the subject of open debates, making itdifficult to match criteria.To better understand the approach to which we are referring, we willgive some historical examples:In April 1899, a strike began among coachmen in the city of BuenosAires. The reason for the protest originated from the municipalprovision that established that coachmen had to attach a photographicportrait to the driver's license, and leave a copy of it at theMunicipality. The re-registration of circulating vehicles would only begranted to those who have presented their portrait.The state provision was located in a context where person identificationtechniques had achieved important technical advances, and in a societyas changing as Buenos Aires at the end of the 19th century, theimplementation of this modality for individual registration wasattractive due to its supposed efficiency. The application ofphotography as a means to keep a record of individuals was initiallyused by the police of the Capital to be able to identify thieves andthus share their factions in different police units.The problem arose when this institution wanted to apply the same meansof identification used for criminals to register certain groups ofworkers. In this sense, the coachmen interpreted that the request forthe photographic record constituted a violation of their individuality,exposing them to police arbitrariness and assuming them as presumedcriminals. That is to say, an offense directed towards a union "thatalthough it is made up of modest people, in the end they are men who arejealous of their dignity"[1]. Here is where the claim for a sulliedhonor appears, a concept of great incidence at the time.At the time of undertaking the protest, the coachmen were not organizedas a union, but formed a union during the course of the contest.Although the claim became public and lawyers like Gori helped to cancelthe municipal provision, the union's lack of previous strength ended upworking against them when sustaining the claim, resulting in themfinally losing the conflict.Note that the content of the claim was not based on a salary issue orworking conditions. What was in dispute was something else, linked tostate control over individuals, over working sectors that feltoverwhelmed for being related to criminals.The historical journey of the photographic portraits included in workbooks is extremely interesting, since once the State achieved itsmission with the coachmen, it later advanced with other items, such ascar drivers, hotel employees, cafe waiters, shop assistants and tramwaywholesalers. Under that same controlling impulse, decades later theState sought to implement a "good conduct" booklet among bus drivers andport workers. The former were able to get around it, but the latter werenot, resulting in the impossibility of accessing the port area foranyone with a police record, directly affecting the union activists whohad several apprehensions to their credit due to the struggles unions Inall the country's ports, there was a struggle to cancel the bookletissued by the Prefecture, but given that this measure was sanctioned in1931, the repressive climate implemented by the Uriburu dictatorship,and continued during the fraudulent government of Justo, the claim itwas fragmented and its repeal was not reached.At this point, we want to emphasize that it was not only the policeimpositions, seeking to keep a record of the workforce, which generatedclaims in defense of the dignity of workers. There is also anotherbattery of cases linked to the imposition of certain forms of conduct,prohibitions on tastes and customs that also managed to enervateproletarian spirits.In this sense, although it may seem striking, at the beginning of the20th century in Argentina a strike called the "Moustaches Protest" tookplace. This protest involved the gastronomic staff of bars, restaurantsand hotels organized in the Cosmopolitan Union of Waiters and Cooks. Theconflict broke out in 1903 due to the claim of a group of employers toreduce the salary of their employees and force them to shed their mustaches.As we have been maintaining, the salary claim was key, but the relevanceof the protest, represented in the public demonstrations of thesegastronomic workers, was reflected around the claim to maintain theiraesthetic independence and the rejection of an imposition consideredarbitrary without relation to the effectiveness of the productionprocess. In the case of the mustache specifically, it must be taken intoaccount that at the beginning of the 20th century, this represented asymbol of adulthood and virility for the men of the time. Therefore,their disappearance would come to mean the opposite, the retraction to astage of immaturity, as if they were defenseless children.The joint action of the workers of the guild displayed a vigorousprotest action, using the strike and sabotage (leaving remains of hairto appear in the meals). This is how the protest, in addition toachieving the annulment of the employer's claim to shave his mustache,also achieved other important demands such as a salary increase and aweekly day off.At this point, we consider that the previously reviewed historical casesillustrate the idea that we expressed at the beginning of the text. Inthis sense, the concept of dignity was raised repeatedly by the labororganizations on those occasions when they saw that the employer orstate arrogance went against the individual liberties of its members,seeking thereby to generate greater control and discipline over theworkers. proletarians involved.Collective pride, understood as the reaffirmation of the dignity of aparticular group, was a key element for different individuals who didnot know each other personally to feel a point of connection, and fromthere to be able to establish a common organization. Therefore, theattack on that collective pride, on proletarian dignity, was a key propfor the constitution of solidarity, organizational ties and processes ofworkers' struggles.[1]La Vanguardia, Buenos Aires, 4/25/1899.J.C.https://organizacion-obrera.fora.com.ar/2023/07/04/huelgas-por-la-dignidad/_________________________________________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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