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research-article2020
LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20924368LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVESCarneiro et al. / PROGRESSIVE PARTIES AND UNION MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHERN CONE

Old Friends in New Times

Progressive Parties and Union Movements
in the Southern Cone
by
Fabricio Carneiro, Guillermo Fuentes, and Carmen Midaglia
Translated by
Victoria J. Furio

An analysis of the course of relations between union movements and left parties in four
Southern Cone countries shows that, while in Uruguay and Argentina the progressive
parties were able to maintain alliances with union actors and empower them, in Brazil and
Chile left parties and unions experienced conflicts that hindered the formation of alliances.
In the four countries studied, two variables had a strong influence on the possibilities for
forming and maintaining a coalition among unions and parties: the electoral strategy of
the leftist party and union fragmentation.

Un análisis del curso de las relaciones entre los movimientos sindicales y los partidos
de izquierda en cuatro países del Cono Sur muestra que, mientras que en Uruguay y
Argentina los partidos progresistas pudieron mantener alianzas con los actores sindicales
y empoderarlos, en Brasil y Chile los partidos y sindicatos izquierdistas experimentaron
conflictos que obstaculizaron la formación de alianzas. En los casos de los cuatro países
analizados, dos variables influyeron fuertemente las posibilidades de formar y mantener
una coalición entre sindicatos y partidos: la estrategia electoral de los partidos de izquierda
y la fragmentación sindical.

Keywords: Unions, Progressive parties, Southern Cone, Coalitions, Power resources

The various progressive governments in Latin America have been grouped

together into two categories in most of the literature: the moderate left,1 which
has generally continued with the market reforms promoted during the previ-
ous decades, and the radical or populist left, which has sought to dismantle
neoliberal policies, granting a greater role to the state. The moderate left
includes the parties that came into power in countries such as Brazil, Chile, and
Uruguay, while the more radical left includes the governments of countries
such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and, in some cases, Argentina. However,
a more careful analysis of their histories allows us to note important differences
within these two analytical categories at both the economic and the social level

Fabricio Carneiro is a researcher and professor in Facultad de Derecho and Facultad de Ciencias
Sociales at the Universidad de la República. Guillermo Fuentes and Carmen Midaglia are both
researchers and professors in Facultad de Ciencias Sociales at Universidad de la República,
Uruguay. Victoria J. Furio is a translator and conference interpreter living in Yonkers, NY.

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 233, Vol. 47 No. 4, July 2020, 112–130
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20924368
https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20924368
© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

112
Carneiro et al. / PROGRESSIVE PARTIES AND UNION MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHERN CONE   113

and in their connection with the classic electoral bases, the unions. This rela-
tionship of union actors with progressive parties has been absent from the most
influential studies on the “left turn” in the region. This article draws on the
theory of power resources to analyze and interpret the relation between politi-
cal parties and union movements in Latin America in the first 15 years of the
twenty-first century.
The union movement is a classic social agent supportive of the redistribution
of wealth in Western societies. This movement had a significant impact in
European countries during the twentieth century, largely after World War II,
under a protectionist development model. The combination of political democ-
racy, organized collective actors, and leftist political parties (Labor or Social
Democrat) favoring redistribution but maintaining the capitalist accumulation
pattern created “moderate” levels of socioeconomic inequality and expanded
social protection for formal workers and their dependents (Esping-Andersen,
1993: 57; Marshall and Bottomore, 1998: 53). Despite having promoted a pattern
of growth favoring state intervention—variants of the import-substitution
industrialization model—since the 1950s, Latin America lacked the economic
and political context of the developed nations. Nevertheless, liberal democracy
was far from being consolidated on the continent. Repression of popular
demands, including those of the unions, became a regular strategy of both the
successive dictatorships and the new “emerging democracies” of the 1980s,
tutored or limited by electoral restrictions and the establishment of a neoliberal
pattern of development that conspired against the organization of the popular
sectors (Patroni and Poitras, 2002: 211–214; O’Donnell, 1996: 37–38).
The undermining suffered by the union movement under this global accu-
mulation regime, which prioritized the flexibility of labor deregulation as a
criterion for economic competitiveness, reinforces the analytical importance of
studying this popular actor within a political and economic framework inclined
to process some of its demands. The twenty-first century created the possibility
of analyzing the relationship between the state and the collective actors, unions
in particular, in a context unprecedented for the region—at least for the first
decade one of economic growth (a result of the commodities boom) and stabil-
ity of liberal democracy in which the ascent to power of progressive political
forces tended to preserve the existing forms of production2 and deliver eco-
nomic distribution through labor and social policies to combat poverty (Prevost,
Oliva Campos, and Vanden, 2012: 21).
In Latin America the relationship between popular actors and the state was
always strained, with patterns of co-optation, represented in a conservative
inclusion of social groups, and opposing ones that converged in genuine col-
laborations to satisfy a set of demands (Dangl, 2010: 5; Filgueira, 2013: 24).This
type of linkage, built historically through contradictory political guidelines,
became evident to the degree that the leftist governments confronted pressure
related to preserving the backing of broad sectors of the electorate with the
support of coalitions representing diverse ideological positions. At the same
time, they sought to maintain the support of social movements, among them
unions (Riethof, 2018: 7).
Prioritizing a union analysis in this essay does not mean theoretically and
empirically ignoring other forms of collective action that have been significant
114   LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

in the region (the landless movement, the indigenous, feminist, and student
movements, and the piqueteros, among others). Some of these popular expres-
sions are relatively new, while others are based on old demands for social jus-
tice that confronted colonialism, neocolonialism, and resistance by regional
elites in connection with the modernization of the region in the previous cen-
tury (Prevost, Oliva Campos, and Vanden, 2012). This renewed package of
social demands tends to manifest itself in circumstances in which political
opportunities are identified for processing claims, recreating the public agenda,
and promoting alternative modes of public protest (Tarrow, 1997: 147–148). The
union movement’s proposals reinforce and complicate the repertoire of popu-
lar demands to the extent that its blueprint for action is focused on the conflict
between capital and labor.
The links between progressive parties and union actors have been change-
able, especially in the Southern Cone countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and
Uruguay). In this work we analyze the diverse paths of these interactions and
argue that the relations between unions and leftist parties in the region during
the so-called progressive era can be explained by the electoral strategies fol-
lowed by the progressive parties, associated with putting together governing
coalitions and the pursuit of support, and the fragmentation of the union move-
ment when those parties took office, seen in the coexistence or lack thereof of
more than one federation of labor unions. The combination of the two factors
established different formats for brokering labor interests that had a specific
political impact in each of the cases analyzed.
An in-depth examination of the links between progressive parties and the
union movement can identify situations in which the neoliberal public policies
of the 1980s and 1990s weakened the union actors at the same time that the pro-
gressive parties’ access to power was unable to strengthen the unions. The typ-
ical case is that of the Chilean Partido Socialista (Socialist Party–PS). In Uruguay,
in contrast, the alliance between party (Frente Amplio [Broad Front—FA]) and
union federation allowed for a strong opposition in the phase of promarket
reforms. At the time of the FA’s coming to power, this relationship not only was
bolstered but strengthened the united workers’ federation. A third type of rela-
tionship can be identified in the Argentine case, where the union movement was
fragmented but Kirchnerism in power nationally sparked a new reconfiguration
of the ties between unions and party, with a clear revitalization of unionism.
Lastly, in the case of Brazil, the close link of the country’s largest union federa-
tion during the 1990s with the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party—PT)
was unsustainable once Lula da Silva rose to the presidency.
This article will attempt to illustrate the different types of relationships and
exchange among the classic actors supporting economic distribution (progres-
sive parties and unions), which were strengthened during the past 15 years in
a set of South American countries. The work is organized as follows: In the next
section we analyze the differences in the ties established among progressive
parties and union federations before and during the phase of progressive shift
in Latin America. In the following one we seek to explain the variation in this
relationship, focusing on union fragmentation and the types of political strat-
egy employed by the progressive parties in order to get into power. In the last
two sections we analyze the four cases selected and present our conclusions.
Carneiro et al. / PROGRESSIVE PARTIES AND UNION MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHERN CONE   115

Linkages between Progressive Parties

and Union Movements

Relations between left parties and unions in the Southern Cone have dis-
played important variations since the transitions to democracy in those coun-
tries. One of the significant periods of change in this relationship was the late
1980s, as the neoliberal shift in the region began. In this phase, while some left
parties sought to adapt to the new ideological consensus, adopting packages of
structural reform policies contrary to their historical programmatic founda-
tions, others, in alliance with the unions, continued to be opponents of the
reforms and managed to moderate and even halt liberal reforms in some stra-
tegic sectors of public policies.
In the first group of countries we see what the literature has called “neolib-
eralism by surprise” (Stokes, 2001). Many political parties, traditionally close
to the workers’ movement in the import-substitution industrialization period,
made a radical turn in their historical programmatic platforms, adopting eco-
nomic liberalization packets, labor flexibilization, and privatizations, which
created long-term consequences for party systems by dealigning programmatic
authority and blurring ideological divides (Roberts, 2014).3 Another adaptive
strategy was the formation of electoral alliances with centrist parties, which
resulted in the weakening of the ties between progressive parties and union
actors. In this group we can locate the path of the Partido Justicialista (Justicialist
Party—PJ) in Argentina and to a lesser degree the Partido Socialista (Socialist
Party—PS) in Chile. In the late 1980s the PJ began a process of profound orga-
nizational and ideological change as a way of adapting to a new electorate
different from its traditional core, centered on urban industrial workers, and to
an international context that imposed limitations on its traditional program-
matic platform (Levitsky, 2003: 94). This transformation led to a distancing
from its union base demonstrated by the loss of influence of unionism both
within PJ structures and in Congress. The deunionization of the PJ signified a
change in the party’s electoral strategy, transforming it from a union-based
party to one focused on clientelistic and patronage networks.
In Chile, the PS began to move away from the union movement in the wan-
ing days of the Pinochet dictatorship. The party, which during the Unión
Popular experiment under Salvador Allende’s administration in the early 1970s
represented the most radical wing of the government coalition, diametrically
changed its programmatic platform during the democratic transition (Roberts,
1998). The failed and traumatic experience of the Unión Popular led the PS to a
critical reevaluation of liberal democracy and the risks of a radical redistribu-
tion program without a policy of alliances among classes and parties. As a
result of this process, it went through most of the postdictatorship period as the
principal partner in the government coalition with the Democracia Cristiana
(Christian Democrat—DC) party, the Concertación. The ideological modera-
tion of the PS as a member of the governing coalition caused the union move-
ment to distance itself, transforming it into an electoral-professional party
dominated by the political elite and their technical cadres. This predominantly
electoral line of action resulted in a weakening of the union movement, mar-
ginalizing and fragmenting the workers’ organizations while subordinating
116   LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

their demands to the dictates of the economic model and the business class
(Barrett, 2001).
In a second group of countries, the left parties managed to remain as alterna-
tives to the neoliberal ideological convergence predominant in the region,
although they began moderating their programs as they grew stronger elector-
ally and were transformed into a probable government alternative. In this
group we find the PT in Brazil and the FA in Uruguay. The PT exhibited strong
ties to the union movement from its inception. In fact, it was created as a polit-
ical tool of the so-called new unionism (Meneguello, 1989) and throughout the
1990s was able to remain a party of opposition to the successive governments.
During the period of transition and democratic consolidation, the PT success-
fully preserved its historical alliance with the most important factions of
Brazilian unionism, united in the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (United
Workers’ Federation—CUT). Although the PT did not produce changes in its
program as radical as those of the PJ, it did go through a process of ideological
modernization to adapt to the pressures of the international markets while its
electoral growth was steering it toward government (Hunter, 2010).
As did the PT, the FA made the transition to democracy as a force of opposi-
tion to the attempts at liberal reform promoted by the traditional parties. This
opposition role, which had characterized this partisan organization since its
creation in the 1970s, allowed it to enhance its historical alliance with the union
movement. It coordinated its actions with the union movement in order to
activate mechanisms of direct democracy that were largely successful and set
very strong limits on the privatization agendas of the various governments of
the period.
A second stage of significant changes in relations between partisan organiza-
tions and organized workers was related to the coming to power of various left
parties in the region. In Argentina, with Néstor Kirchner’s victory in 2003 the
PJ once again reshaped its links to unionism and with the piquetero movement
(an organization that brings together informal workers and the unemployed)
through granting benefits with the expectation of rebuilding its historical alli-
ance with organized social actors. Among the measures employed were the
reactivation of collective bargaining, with a priority on sectoral negotiation by
branches of industry, the dismantling of the labor flexibilization laws, a sus-
tained increase in the minimum wage, a policy of ongoing dialogue regarding
social and union conflicts, the consolidation of union control over social wel-
fare programs, and an expansive economic policy that promoted employment
and reindustrialization in some sectors (Etchemendy, 2011). These measures
allowed the Kirchner government to proceed with the transformation of the PJ
in a context of sharp political delegitimization and crisis in the party system.
In Chile in 2000 a socialist president came to power for the first time since
the Allende government experiment, but this did not mean a radical change in
the relation between the union movement and the party. Although the PS made
overtures to unionism by approving labor reform, the moderate nature of its
contents divided the party and left a very weak union movement dissatisfied
and unable to pressure for more ambitious changes.
In Brazil the PT was able to maintain its alliance with the unions before Lula
da Silva became president, but that link began to weaken as the party came
Carneiro et al. / PROGRESSIVE PARTIES AND UNION MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHERN CONE   117

Table 1
Links between Unions and Progressive Parties Before and After the Parties’
Coming to Power
After

Before Alliance Distance

Alliance Uruguay (FA) Brazil (PT)
Distance Argentina (PJ) Chile (PS)

closer to electoral victory. Once in government, despite outreach to the unions—

for example, with a policy of sustained increase in the minimum wage, the
creation of institutionalized mechanisms of consultation with the workers’ fed-
erations, and the inclusion of union leaders in government posts (Cardoso and
Gíndin, 2009)—it was unable to pass a labor reform bill, continued conven-
tional macroeconomic policies, and became involved in numerous corruption
scandals that undermined its support within the unions and the social move-
ments.
In Uruguay the FA pursued a path of ideological moderation similar to that
of the PT in Brazil but once in power managed to sustain its alliance with the
union movement. Reactivation of plans for neocorporatist arrangements, along
with the passage of numerous labor laws that protected and expanded labor
rights, assured the party of an aligned union movement when reforms were
advanced.
In summary, the links between unions and progressive parties before and
after the latter came to power reveal a pattern of continuity in Chile and
Uruguay and change in Argentina and Brazil (Table 1). The PT and the FA
strengthened their alliances with unionism, resisting liberal reforms, while the
PS and the PJ distanced themselves from the union movement, respecting the
liberal status quo in the former case and promoting market-oriented reforms in
the latter.
During the progressive shift, we can again see different trajectories. Just as
in the previous phase, the PS, having acquired more weight in the Concertación
government in Chile as of 2000, remained distant from the union movement. In
contrast, when the PT came to power its historical alliance with the union
movement was weakened, basically because of differences with respect to the
reform of such pillars of labor policy as retirement and social security. The PJ,
which in the previous phase had moved away from unionism, reconfigured the
alliance once in office. The FA preserved its close relationship, promoting a
package of public policies that benefited unionism, especially with the reactiva-
tion of collective bargaining by sector of activity.
The different relations between parties and unions shaped the changes in
union power in the various cases. After the liberalization of the 1990s, unions
in Chile and in Uruguay had been weakened on the threshold of left govern-
ments’ coming to power. Despite this shared aspect, in Chile the union actor
was only minimally strengthened during the 2000s, while in Uruguay an acti-
vation of unionism similar to the one the country had had before liberalization
was achieved. Moreover, in Argentina and Brazil the unions maintained a
118   LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Table 2
Union Density (percent) in the Selected Countries (1985–2010)
Union Density  

Countries 1985–1990 1995–2000 2005–2010 Difference

Argentina 48.7 25.4 40.3 +14.9
Brazil 21.9 20.6 20.3 –0.3
Chile 13.4 11.4 11.6 +0.2
Uruguay 22.9 14.7 21.7 +7.0
Sources: For Argentina, figures for 1986, 1995, and 2008 from ILO (1998); for Brazil, Cardoso (2014); for
Chile, Dirección de Trabajo, 2013; for Uruguay, figures for 1985–1997 from Cassoni, Labadie, and Fachola
(2005) and for 2008 from Mazzuchi (2009).

certain relative strength during the process of economic liberalization in the

1990s through the preservation of some power resources, but in the 2000s they
had different track records of activation: resurgence in Argentina and weaken-
ing in Brazil (Table 2).

Explanatory Variables: Electoral Strategy

and Union Fragmentation

As we have pointed out, the electoral victory of the progressive parties in

southern Latin America did not involve uniform linkages with the union move-
ments in each country. Differences were apparent both at the level of specific
public policies toward organized workers and at the level of labor rights
(Carneiro, 2017) and in formalized instances of bipartite or tripartite negotia-
tions. These different formats for handling interests can be explained in terms of
two political variables: the party’s coalitional strategy and the degree of union
fragmentation at the moment the progressive party attained power.
With regard to the first variable, the left parties that adopted a strategy of
pursuing electoral coalitions with center or center-right political forces in which
the left parties were not in control moved farthest away from the union move-
ment. This distancing was due to the fact that the progressive parties had trou-
ble achieving passage of reforms that benefited the unions. In this context, there
were no mechanisms for controlling coalition partners, and a set of prounion
policies was blocked or toned down in negotiations with governing coalition
partners. Moreover, the organizational fragmentation suffered by unionism
during the liberalization period determined its possibilities for resurgence as a
progressive party came to power. Holding a monopoly on representing workers
through a unified federation is one of the union movement’s most important
power resources for two reasons: first because it allows for coordination of pro-
test actions and presenting credible threats of mobilization in confrontation with
governments and business and second because it gives the government incen-
tives to negotiate with the union movement, assured of a unified actor capable
of disciplining and coordinating the actions of the organized workers. Therefore,
fragmentation in the representation of workers is always a sign of weakness of
its organizations in negotiations with the government (Murillo, 2001: 17).
Carneiro et al. / PROGRESSIVE PARTIES AND UNION MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHERN CONE   119

Electoral Strategies of Southern Cone

Progressive Parties

The electoral strategies of the governing parties have been a fundamental

variable for analyzing the links between the political left and unions in Europe.
In this literature, the strategies of the various social democratic parties for com-
peting electorally determine the type of alliances they attempt to build and, in
consequence, the closeness or distance of the organized workers. Insofar as the
strategic lines prioritize capturing the “middle vote,” it can be expected that
parties will choose to “liberate” themselves from strong commitments to the
unions.
Kitschelt (1994) has suggested that left parties take more centrist positions as
a way to capture larger portions of the electorate. The more difficult it is to
incorporate new groups into internal party workings and the less autonomy
leaders have to redirect the electoral strategy, the greater the difficulty for social
democratic parties of expanding voter support. In addition to the electoral
strategy, the closest links between the left and labor organizations have been
growing weaker because of the influence of a number of factors, among them
cultural and ideological aspects through which the unions have seen their ide-
ological boundaries vanish and others considered structural, a product of the
transformation of the production model and therefore of the job market. The
decline in industrial jobs and the increase in white-collar and professional occu-
pations have presented new challenges for political representation and the bro-
kering of labor interests. In the case of Latin America, this process had been
under way for decades, after the import-substitution industrialization model
reached its limit. According to Weller (1998), the proportion of the economically
active employed in the secondary sector (mostly industry) fell from 25 percent
to 23.7 percent between 1980 and 1990. As an offset, employment in the tertiary
sector (services) rose from 46.7 percent to 53.9 percent. Lastly, there have been
changes in the political context and in guidelines for growth, in which political
responses to economic crises (neoliberal restructuring) led by social democratic
governments have placed those parties in confrontation with the unions and
this tension has been capitalized on by right-wing nationalist parties (Hyman
and Gumbrell-McCormick, 2010).
Haugsgjerd, Aylott, and Christiansen (2010) analyze this link from a clearly
instrumental perspective, arguing that the relationship between unions and
parties works as long as both sectors can benefit from the association. For the
unions, allying themselves with a party is important in that it contributes to
greater union membership and in that governments led by social democrats
imply public policies closer to their interests and expectations. Moreover, for
the parties, partnership with the unions may provide financing but primarily
votes. When this interchange is carried out efficiently—in other words, with
political profit for the partners—the connections remain strong. The above-
mentioned new economic scenario for Western countries weakened the unions
when it came time to ensure a significant number of votes. At the same time,
the deterioration of the image of the social democratic parties stemming from
their handling of the recent crises limited the possibility of those groups’ taking
power and thereby ensuring the unconditional support of the unions.
120   LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

An array of left parties in Latin America felt the same pressure as the social
democratic parties when they focused on winning national elections. In the
cases analyzed in this work, the parties developed electoral and government
coalitions in order to increase their chances of winning the elections and ensur-
ing governability. However, the coalition strategies developed by those parties
took different paths: while the FA in Uruguay partnered with Nuevo Espacio
(New Space [NE], a small center-left party that ended up joining the FA), the
Frente para la Victoria (Front for Victory—FPV) in Argentina and the PT in
Brazil had to form coalitions with various parties (mostly left or center-left and
center) in order to preserve congressional majorities. Lastly, from the end of the
dictatorship on, the Chilean PS was part of a coalition made up of the DC, the
Partido por la Democracia (Party for Democracy—PPD), and the Partido
Radical Socialdemócrata (Radical Social Democrat Party—PRSD) (the
Concertación) with a clear centrist orientation as the dominant force in the
coalition. These different coalition strategies for attaining the presidency deter-
mined the possibilities for carrying out reforms that benefited the most classic
electoral bases of these parties (Table 3).
Collective action by subaltern groups becomes an alternative power
resource, of an instrumental sort, that makes it possible to modify the eco-
nomic distribution produced by the market (Fairfield, 2015). The socioeco-
nomic sectors with less privilege in the distribution of power resources will
seek, through collective action demonstrated by parties and unions, to change
the conditions and outcomes of market distribution (Korpi, 2006). Power
resources theory focuses on the link between left parties and unions in order
to explain the results of social policy.
Studies usually point to the importance of unions allied with social demo-
cratic parties in the construction of universal welfare states. The strength of
social democratic parties partnered with powerful unions has been seen to
have a positive effect on the state’s social spending, mainly on goods and ser-
vices, and has been associated with greater redistributive results than those of
Catholic or Christian Democratic parties (Huber, Ragin, and Stephens, 1993).
The basic idea is that pressures for a universal welfare state emerge from the
power of social-union actors and their ties to like-minded political parties in the
electoral arena. While this is a widely accepted explanation for the degree of
universalism of social policies in Europe, it has not been employed to explain
the recent changes in social and labor policy under progressive governments.
The late industrialization in Latin America never produced an industrial sector
as extensive and significant as those of the industrialized democracies, and this
led to much more fragmented labor markets. In addition, capital mobility and
the pressure from international markets in the region limited the autonomy
that social democratic projects needed to develop in Europe (Roberts, 2008).
However, the cases of Uruguay and Argentina show that it is possible for alli-
ances between organized workers and political parties to arise in those con-
texts. From this perspective, unity of the labor movement is important in
explaining the ability of this actor to influence the formulation of public poli-
cies that guarantee its rights. Nevertheless, the consolidation or fragmentation
of the union movement in Latin America developed differently in the various
countries. Attempts by the political class to control or directly co-opt the union
Carneiro et al. / PROGRESSIVE PARTIES AND UNION MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHERN CONE   121

Table 3
Coalitional Strategies of Left Parties
Party Predominant
Party Period Coalition Partners in the Coalition?
FPV 2003–2007 ARI (separated in 2005), Conservador Popular, Yes
De la Victoria, Nuevo Encuentro, Frente Grande
(joined in 2005), Partido Justicialista
FPV 2007–2011 Conservador Popular, De la Victoria, Frente Yes
Grande, Partido Justicialista, Partido Solidario,
Partido Demócrata Cristiana (separated in 2009),
Movimientos Libres del Sur (separated in 2009),
Intransigente, Forja
PT 2003–2006 Partido Popular Socialista, Partido Socialista No
Brasileño, Partido Democrático Laborista,
Partido Comunista, Partido Socialista, Partido
Liberal, Partido de la Movilización Nacional,
Partido Verde
PT 2006–2010 Partido Progresista, Partido Laborista Brasileño, No
Partido Verde, Partido Demócrata Laborista,
Partido Socialista Brasileño, Partido Comunista
de Brasil, Partido del Movimiento Democrático
Brasileño
PT 2010–2014 Partido Republicano Brasileño, Partido No
Democrático Laborista, Partido del Movimiento
Democrático Brasileño, Partido Laborista
Nacional, Partido Social Cristiano, Partido de la
Republica, Partido Laborista Cristiano, Partido
Socialista Brasileño, Partido Comunista de Brasil
FA 2005–2009 Nuevo Espacio Yes
FA 2010–2014 None Yes
PS 2000–2006 Partido Demócrata Cristiano, Partido por la No
Democracia, Partido Liberal, Partido Radical
Socialdemócrata
PS 2006–2010 Partido Demócrata Cristiano, Partido por la No
Democracia, Partido Radical Socialdemócrata
Sources: Data from Pereira (2010), Figueiredo (2007), Neto (2014), Lafuente et al. (2015).

movement often intervened. Throughout the twentieth century, while import-

substitution industralization fostered a favorable environment for the growth
and empowerment of union activity and the unification of the movement, the
regional adoption of a model geared toward the market and the institutional
failures of democracy in the region brought with them a direct attack on the
organizational and mobilization capacity of the unions (Table 4).
The transition to democracy that began in the cases studied from the mid-
1980s coexisted with the change in the pattern of growth and accumulation
geared toward the market. These processes affected the union movement in
both its ability to influence decision making and its unity. For example, in the
four cases analyzed, labor informality (measured by the number of workers
who are not registered for social security) grew between 1990 and 2000, rising
to 45.6 percent of Argentine workers in 2001 (Acuña, Kessler, and Repetto,
2002) and 52.5 percent in Brazil (Alejo and Parada, 2017). Moreover, the effects
122   LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Table 4
Principal Union Federations in the Southern Cone
Federation Date Established Origin
Chile
Central Unitaria de 1988 Congreso de Trabajadores Chilenos
Trabajadores
Unión Nacional de 2004 Split from the Central Unitaria de
Trabajadores Trabajadores
Central Autónoma de 1995 Successor to Christian unionism of the
Trabajadores 1960s
Argentina
Confederación General del 1930 (legal union Merger
Trabajo status 1946)
Central de Trabajadores de 1992 Split from the Confederación General
la Argentina (CTA) del Trabajo
Brazil
Central Única dos 1983 Congreso de la Clase Trabajadora
Trabalhadores
Força Sindical 1992 Congreso no Memorial da América
Latina, split from the Central Geral
dos Trabalhadores
Nova Central Sindical dos 2005 Forum Sindical de Trabalhadores, 2004
Trabalhadores
Central dos Trabalhadores e 2007 Congreso Nacional de la Clase
Trabalhadoras do Brasil Trabajadora de Brasil, split from the
Central Única dos Trabalhadores
União Geral dos 2007 Congreso Nacional de Trabajadores,
Trabalhadores merger of Confederação Geral dos
Trabalhadores, Central Autônoma
dos Trabalhadores, Social Democracia
Sindical
Central dos Sindicatos 2008 Central Getulista, later Central Sindical
Brasileiros de Profissionais (name changed in
2012)
Uruguay
Plenario Intersindical de 1966 (CNT) and Congreso del Pueblo and
Trabajadores–Convención 1983 (PIT) May 1, 1983, event
Nacional de Trabajadores
Sources: Data from federations’ web pages.

of the promarket reforms weakened the organizing capacity of unionism not

only through job insecurity but also through the destruction of jobs.
Unemployment increased from 5.9 percent to 14.8 percent in Argentina, from
4.5 percent to 11.4 percent in Brazil, from 8.7 percent to 10.8 percent in Chile,
and from 8.9 percent to 13.5 percent in Uruguay (CEPALSTAT, n.d.). The dis-
tributive effects of the change in economic model intensified the organizational
weakness of the working classes by increasing income inequalities and hinder-
ing collective action (Traversa, 2015). The Gini index increased between 1980
and 1988 from 0.398 to 0.502 in Argentina, from 0.574 to 0.592 in Brazil, from
0.529 to 0.555 in Chile, and from 0.402 to 0.440 in Uruguay (Bértola and Ocampo,
2013: 300). Promarket reforms, contrary to the assumptions that supported
Carneiro et al. / PROGRESSIVE PARTIES AND UNION MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHERN CONE   123

them, revealed that economic growth by itself did not sustainably enable
reversing poverty, much less inequality. In this context, the relation between
growth and equity became a pivotal point of the political debate in the region
(Patroni and Poitras, 2002: 211).
It is on this point that the role of political parties close to unions gains vital
importance, along with the positions of these collective actors with respect to
neoliberal reforms. In cases where partisan associates were in government,
promoting reforms that intended to relax labor rights, the union movement
tended to break down between the federations that negotiated with the gov-
ernment to preserve certain collective privileges, accepting losses in individ-
ual rights (a position that tended to be reinforced where the threat of an
authoritarian return was still credible, as in the Chilean case), and other group-
ings of labor organizations that opposed the reforms. As a counterweight, in
countries where the left parties were in the opposition during the thrust of
liberal policies, the union movement remained relatively united in an attempt
to limit the extent of the reforms, building a defensive coalition with the left
parties, as occurred in Uruguay.

Union-Party Linkage in The Southern Cone

Argentina

In Carlos Menem’s Argentina, serious restructurings of the formal job mar-

ket (erosion of job contracts, outsourcing of activities, etc.) had a severe impact
on the unity of the union movement (Etchemendy and Collier, 2008; Murillo,
2013; Novick, 2001; Svampa, 2007). The historical Central General de
Trabajadores (General Confederation of Workers—CGT) experienced internal
divisions. Its so-called progovernment tendency benefited from promarket
policies by guaranteeing control over the classic resources of labor protections
or developing business practices based on those of the privatized economic
sectors. The alternative tendency within the confederation considered itself the
“opposition CGT,” demanding a degree of state intervention and creating sig-
nificant union pressure. A third position was represented by the so-called blue-
and-white CGT, which attempted to maintain some distance from the next
Kirchnerist administration.
In 1992 a breakup of the classic confederation occurred, creating a new one
claiming independence of the political parties called the Central de los
Trabajadores Argentinos (Federation of Argentine Workers—CTA) and made
up basically of state workers (Svampa, 2007). The institutional power resources
of these two labor organizations were unequal: the CGT had legal standing and
therefore authorization by the state to represent and handle the sources of
union financing, while the CTA had only union registration, which limited its
capacity for action. The coming to power of the FPV marked the start of a new
period of relationship between the PJ and unionism. Among the political ges-
tures undertaken by Néstor Kirchner’s administration was the repeal of the
Banelco Act (25.250), a law enacted during the government of Fernando de la
Rúa that among other things undermined labor relations by increasing the
probationary hire period and promoting negotiations by company. The repeal
124   LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

represented the debut of the FPV’s proper majority in 2004 and was approved
215 to 23. It had the support of the Unión Cívica Radical (Radical Civic Union—
UCR) and the piquetero movement in addition to the government coalition. It
also got the nod from the CTA, the progovernment CGT, and the “rebel” CGT
(La Nación, December 15, 2003).

Brazil

In the case of Brazil, the long process of economic liberalization coincided

somewhat with the new unionism of the 1980s. The outcome of this period,
although it set in place a fragmented pattern of union action, was that the new
federations not only conveyed differential views of capital-labor conflict but
also established specific political formats for processing interests, creating link-
ages with the modern Brazilian political parties. During the push for liberal
economic policies under the presidencies of Fernando Collor de Mello and
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, unionism took a defensive stance in an attempt
to preserve existing labor protections. In the broad universe of union federa-
tions, the four major organizations were the Central Única dos Trabalhadores
(United Workers’ Federation—CUT), the Força Sindical (Union Strength—FS),
the Nova Central Sindical dos Trabalhadores (New Union Federation of
Workers—NCST), and the União Geral dos Trabalhadores (General Union of
Workers—UGT), and they displayed distinctive strategies for political action.
The CUT became a major union federation, obtaining broad national represen-
tation, integrating rural workers into its ranks, and maintaining close ties to the
PT (Silva, 2011). The FS was second in importance and proposed creating an
independent unionism, pragmatic and autonomous of the political parties,
with the goal of establishing exchanges with the business class and the govern-
ment. In turn, the NCST and UGT were twenty-first-century federations cre-
ated in the context of the reorganization of units representing workers that took
place under the leftist administrations. Both were reconfigurations of existing
confederations (Radermacher and Melleiro, 2007).
Under the presidency of the PT there were significant achievements on labor
issues, essentially regarding individual rights and substantive increases in the
minimum wage, which registered a 54 percent increase by the end of Lula’s two
terms as president (Cook and Bazler, 2013). However, the main government
initiatives on labor barely attained partial approvals, and some capsized along
the way (Radermacher and Melleiro, 2007). The two major reforms promoted,
which required broad and solid political consensus because they involved a
serious revision of the labor relations system in strategic areas such as union
organization, collective bargaining, and the legal authorization of union fed-
erations, generated divisions in the union movement and political realign-
ments in the Congress.
Although a tripartite space for dialogue, the Foro Nacional del Trabajo
(National Labor Forum), was instituted to discuss this reformist agenda, the
agreements reached were subject to revisions by congressional committees in
which the business leaders managed to block some of the original proposals,
suggesting alternatives that were a far cry from the crux of the government’s
action. In addition, the law on authorization of federations approved in 2008
Carneiro et al. / PROGRESSIVE PARTIES AND UNION MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHERN CONE   125

intensified the fragmentation of unionism, fostering political and economic

competition in a political and administrative framework of scant regulation of
the formation of new unions (Cook and Bazler, 2013). The limited results
obtained in matters of labor reform can be explained by the type of government
formed by the PT with centrist political forces such as the Partido del
Movimiento Democrático Brasileño (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party—
PMDB) and by the significant degree of segmentation of the union movement
illustrated by the existence of several union federations.
The government coalition fit into a politico-institutional system enshrined in
the 1988 Constitution, which combines a presidential system with a three-tiered
federal structure of 26 states and 5,561 municipalities called “presidential coali-
tion rule” (Souza, 2005). In this institutional system the power of the Union
gained influence in determining the principal public policies, while the politi-
cal forces of the various states had a strong presence in the Congress. For some
analysts, the federative design tended to privilege the interests of the various
states, since it increased the informal power of the governors (Mainwaring,
1999). For others, the constitutional standards also strengthened the power of
the president in building the legislative agenda, halting individualist behavior,
and increasing the participation of the executive in the decision-making pro-
cess (Limongi and Figueiredo, 1998). Apart from these interpretations, there is
no doubt that the elected government needed to form a coalition of support in
the Congress that would ensure the processing and approval of the principal
measures of its program (Souza, 2005). Thus the political views of the members
of this coalition became crucial for processing various public initiatives—in this
case, the labor reforms.

Chile

Under Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship a new Labor Plan deregulated labor

relations, promoting a market unionism. This new legal framework linking
capital and labor, while recognizing the legality of the unions, authorized their
actions only at the company level and limited strikes and collective bargaining
while granting freedom of action to businesspeople to hire and fire workers
(González and Zapata, 2015). The Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (United
Workers’ Federation—CUT) was reinstituted in 1988, and although it was rein-
stalled as an interlocutor of government and industry, its activity was framed
within the labor code adopted in the authoritarian period. The new CUT,
whether by political choice or by the circumstances of the context, renounced
mobilization of the masses and public opposition and consequently moderated
its demands (Gutiérrez, 2016).
The position assumed by the federation coincided with the coalition policy
established by the DC and the PS, which took over control of the social demands,
in particular for economic distribution, on the pretext of ensuring democratic
stability (Drake, 2003). The predominance of the DC in the government coali-
tion and the influence of its more liberal wing prevented progress on more
ambitious labor reforms that would have allowed for greater distancing from
the legacy of commodification of labor relations established in the Labor Plan.
In this setting of political moderation without substantive change in the rules
126   LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

of the labor game, a process of confrontation of different currents of opinion

within the CUT began that eventually led to the breakup of the traditional
union unity.
At the start of the twenty-first century, when the PS won positions in the
government coalition (under the presidency of Ricardo Lagos), labor reform
entered the public agenda, but only partial reformulations were reached (Frank,
2002; Gutiérrez, 2016). The diminished labor results obtained and the increase
in internal conflict resulted in the breakdown of the long tradition of union
unity, generating two new federations: the Central Autónoma de Trabajadores
(Autonomous Federation of Workers—CAT) and the Unión Nacional de
Trabajadores (National Union of Workers—UNT). Added to this context of
union weakness, the political power of the CUT had suffered another loss from
the alienation of the shop-floor unions, only a minority of which were federa-
tion members (Frías, 2008).

Uruguay

The Uruguayan union movement maintained its classic unity of action and
recovered its alliance with the left party, the FA, developing strategies for joint
action to halt or at least modify liberal economic policies. The classic Convención
Nacional de Trabajadores (National Workers’ Convention—CNT) regained the
traditional identity suppressed during the dictatorship and at the same time
incorporated the restructuring of the transition to democracy under a new
name: the Plenario Intersindical de Trabajadores (Interunion Workers’
Plenary—PIT). This combination of tradition and renewal took the form of an
alternative designation for this federation, the PIT-CNT.
The absence of a labor code allowed the democratic governments of the
1980s and the 2000s to reinstate spaces for collective bargaining and then to
remove them in the 1990s without having to adjust labor regulations—merely
dealing with the dissatisfaction of union members (Carneiro, 2017; Senatore,
2009). In the political context, maintenance of the promarket growth guidelines
adopted was, as in most Latin American countries, limited, particularly because
of the joint action of the PIT-CNT and the FA, with regard to privatizations of
public services and the slowdown in the pace of tariff reductions (Notaro,
2012). The constant increase in voter support for the FA, which resulted in three
consecutive electoral victories in the new century, had a positive effect on the
strengthening of the union federation (González and Zapata, 2015). With the
FA in office a set of labor laws was enacted, including a broad-based labor law
for private sector workers and another for the public sector that institutional-
ized tripartite negotiations in the country.

Conclusions

Analysis of the linkages between union actors and progressive parties is an

issue that has been absent from comparative analyses on the region’s left turn.
In this essay, we have pointed to the importance of a unified union movement
and a progressive party that is predominant in the governing coalition as
Carneiro et al. / PROGRESSIVE PARTIES AND UNION MOVEMENTS IN THE SOUTHERN CONE   127

conditions for maintaining an alliance between unions and progressive parties

in the period following the emergence of promarket reforms. While the role of
unions and their influence on political parties was one of the principal theo-
retical perspectives in explaining the results of the structural reforms of the
1980s and 1990s, it has not been a significant factor in evaluating the policies of
progressive governments in the region. In this work we have sought to under-
line that an approach focused on coalitions of social actors and politicians can
be useful for explaining not only state withdrawal from the economy but also
the new forms of intervention in the same period following the rise of struc-
tural reforms. The new political changes experienced in the region with the
coming to power of right-wing leaders and parties strain these links but allow
us to see the importance of the different legacies of activation of the union
movement in order to confront the new neoliberal impetus.

Notes

1. This category has been characterized in various ways: as “modern” (Castañeda, 2006),
“social democrat” (Lanzaro, 2008), “social-liberal” (Levitsky and Roberts, 2011), and “moderate”
(Weyland, 2011).
2. We define “progressive parties” as partisan organizations that have on their government
agendas a concern for the redistribution of income but do not seek to implement economic models
alternative to capitalism. These governments are those identified by studies from more radical
theoretical perspectives as “the permitted left” (Webber and Carr, 2013).
3. When this blurring and signature loss of partisan identity was combined with a severe eco-
nomic crisis or poor government performance, the result was a partisan crisis (Lupu, 2014).

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