To Be a Worker: Identity and Politics in Peru (Latin America in Translation/En Traduccion/Em Traducao)
by Jorge Parodi
Book Summary Information
Author: Jorge ParodiEditor: Catherine Conaghan
Translator: Catherine Conaghan
Edition: Paperback
Audio: Spanish (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-07-10
ISBN: 0807848603
Number of pages: 200
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Book Reviews of To Be a Worker: Identity and Politics in Peru (Latin America in Translation/En Traduccion/Em Traducao)
Book Review: Class-consciousness isn't so easy after all
Summary: 5 Stars
"It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do."
- Karl Marx, The Holy Family
Jorge Parodi's analysis of the rapid development and subsequent decline of the Metal Empresa union offers both an opportunity to examine the emergence and extent of class-consciousness in the workers at Metal Empresa, as well as a history of trade unionism in Peru. Parodi, through his ethnography at the Metal Empresa plant, charts the evolution of the metallurgical unions by dissecting the history of working conditions and the internal conflicts at Metal Empresa; examining the political situation and the influence of outside actors; and the individual motivations that converged and, in the end, did not provide a sufficient base for sustaining a strong clasista consciousness and, subsequently, a strong union movement.
The workers' motivations for establishing a union are clear: workers received inadequate compensation for their labor, worked under repressive management, and as a result of the intense competition for jobs, were left with few options for steady employment. Until 1970, workers at Metal Empresa were largely constrained from unionizing in any effective capacity due to the threat of firing. However, following the enactment of the Law of Security of Labor Employment, there was motivation without constraint. This also converged with an outside interest: political competition by the nueva izquierda with the military regime.
Although circumstances aligned for creating a union at Metal Empresa, as the rationale for doing so was in the self-interest of all workers, competition among workers could potentially undercut solidarity. The conflicting identities that the workers ascribed to themselves and to those around them immediately established the boundaries that needed to be overcome in order to establish a collective identity. The serranos held firmly to their self-image as hard working, versatile, and saving for the future. They considered the criollos to be lazy and only interested in immediate comforts and gains, and therefore inferior workers. Likewise, the disdain that the criollos felt for the serranos separated them from each other, at least in their own consciousnesses. Simply because both groups were workers, and therefore in natural competition with their employers, did not mean in their perceptions of each other that they were equals.
Marx was aware of the natural conflict of self-interest to class-consciousness, which is why he emphasized solidarity. In the case of the Metal Empresa workers, was needed to overcome the management's efforts to divide them by favoring some groups, such as the talare?os, over others, as well as their own self-ascribed competing identities. Instead of viewing each other as serranos, criollos, and talare?os, they would need to identify themselves as workers in solidarity with each other against management.
Lenin, however, argued that only a shallow "trade union consciousness" could emerge from the proletariat directly and that an intellectual cadre needed to foster and direct the sense of class-consciousness within the proletariat. This is obviously the role that the university students and the nueva izquierda sought to play in relation to the Metal Empresa workers. Because although the workers knew that they wanted to obtain better compensation for their labor, they largely felt that they did not know how to organize and obtain such compensation. The university students that offered such assistance did so with the expectation that the workers would be willing foot soldiers in their political campaign against the regime. On the students' part, this either required them to assume that the workers were aligned with them politically, or that if they were not, it was because they needed intellectual leaders to expand their struggle beyond that of fighting for better working conditions to fighting for a better political situation for their country. The first assumption, that the workers would be politically aligned, is flawed inasmuch as many of the workers express their frustrations to Parodi with political demonstrations; they simply want to obtain and maintain acceptable labor conditions for themselves.
The second assumption that the workers would want to participate in political struggles of the nueva izquierda also assumes the subordination of the workers' class-consciousness to the political goals of the nueva izquierda. This, according to Luxemburg, is contrary to the workers' ability to maintain solidarity and continue progress in their struggle. However, Marx acknowledges the importance of the union and party leaders, which in the case of the Metal Empresa union were steeped in clasista thinking, who were able to mobilize the workers and articulate their grievances to management.
In the end, the Metal Empresa workers were uninterested in larger political battles, and as Parodi suggests, capitalists at heart. The documentation of the workers who engaged in enterprises outside the factory, time and again, regardless of the gains made by the union, suggest that the workers were seeking a personal security for themselves in the future. This security was individualistic and trumped the concerns of the union and the clasista leaders. In fact, it is interesting to note that clasista thinking was only adopted by the union leaders, such as Jesus Zu?iga, and not by the body of workers. Although workers accepted that leaders subscribed to the ideology of class thinking, which may have been necessary for the leaders to accept in order to effectively fight for union interests, the workers themselves showed no need to personalize such beliefs.
Parodi also points to a paradox that conscribed la lucha for the Metal Empresa workers. Despite the nueva izquierda's opposition to the military regime, without the Law of Security of Labor Employment, enacted by the regime, the labor unions would not have had the ability to mobilize. Without the mobilization of the unions, the nueva izquierda would have been deprived of their largest and most reliable source or protest and legitimization.
Unexplored by Parodi, but nonetheless a possible epilogue to his analysis, is the possible impact that the void of political opposition created by the decline of unionism may have played in the rise of Sendero Luminoso in the early to mid 1980s.
Considering that the Vanguardia Revolucionaria (VR) could not foster a movement beyond the individual struggles for workers' rights in industry, it seems plausible that the intellectual Left may have turned to more anti-system options to pursue its political goals. In fact, Sendero was founded primarily by a group of frustrated intellectuals from Ayacucho, and it received a significant Leninist contribution from VR.
If one accepts this theory, then it is reasonable to suggest that the military regime in the 1970s may have taken a lesson from Bolivia's history. In Bolivia the strong militancy of the miners' unions possibly prevented the rise of an armed guerilla movement. By purposefully providing a "release valve" for leftist frustrations in allowing unions to form, the regime offered the VR and nueva izquierda a possible outlet for political development, although in the end, not a lasting one. It would have been a gamble for the regime, because if the VR were able to create a powerful militancy in the unions, major confrontations may have ensued. In the end, the radical Left's battle took place in the 1980s and 1990s, with Presidente Gonzalo at the helm.
References
Bottomore, T. (1991). A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Lenin, V.I. (1902). What is to be Done?
Marx, K. (1852). The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (S. Padover, Trans.).
Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1845). The Holy Family (R. Dixon & C. Dutts, Trans. 1956.).
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