Workers, unions and politics in Tucumán. 1930-1943

Abstract

Colonel Perón won the presidential elections in February 1946 and his party, the Labor Party, obtained in the province of Tucumán the highest percentage of votes in the entire country. The investigations focused on the construction of local Peronism indicated that a large part of those votes came from the structure and work of the "provincial labor movement". These works started from a group made up of actors who actively participated in Peronist politics. But where did it come from, how was it formed and what was the experience of that workers' base that shaped the Labor Party in Tucumán and forcefully prevailed in political negotiations by appealing to its "electoral capital"?
 
With that initial question, the objective of the thesis was to analyze the experience and political practices of Tucuman workers in general and of the trade union movement in particular in a complex decade such as the 1930s, where everything was passionately ideologized, but where the only certainty was uncertainty. We start from assuming that the vocation of political participation that found institutional channels with Peronism, was a construction that was consolidated in the period 1930 and 1943. In that direction, from a deep process of growth and union organization, these years shaped to a scenario of dispute and expansion of the political and social limits that circumscribed the spaces, repertoires and languages ​​of social conflict and the possibilities of action for the working class.