A History of Organized Labor in Panama and Central America

A History of Organized Labor in Panama and Central America
Author: Robert J. Alexander
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2008-07-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0313359032

This volume is a pioneering study of the history of organized labor in the Central American republics. It traces the history in the various countries from the early nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. It also discusses why they appeared, what organizational and ideological tendencies characterized the movement in these countries, the role of collective bargaining, the economic influence of organized labor, as well as the relations of the movement in the individual countries with one another and with the broader labor movement outside of the countries involved in this volume.

A Social History of Spanish Labour

A Social History of Spanish Labour
Author: José A. Piqueras
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857450409

Focusing on organization, resistance and political culture, this collection represents some of the best examples of recent Spanish historiography in the field of modern Spanish labor movements. Topics range from socialism to anarchism, from the formation of the liberal state in the 19th century to the Civil War, and from women in the work place to the fate of the unions under Franco.

Democracy in Colombia

Democracy in Colombia
Author: Jorge Pablo Osterling
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2020-02-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000675394

In what is destined to prove the definitive text for the present generation on the political, economic, and social structure of Colombia, Jorge Pablo Osterling explores the enigmatic nature of this special, even critical, anchor to the northern tier of South America. In many ways, Colombia is a huge success story: it is one of the oldest, most stable, functioning democracies; the land is blessed with rich and diversified resources and products; and its foreign debt has been kept in check as a consequence of sound economic management.But despite its positive social, cultural, economic, and political indicators, Colombia has been a nation beset by serious problems: overt corruption and unemployment are very high; and its public service facilities to outlying rural areas remain weak, thus making schooling, water supplies, health care, and electrification hard to establish at high levels. Above all, Colombia has a reputation, well earned, as one of the most violent nations in the world. Drug trafficking, common crime, and guerrilla activity are all pandemic and conspire to destabilize the regime.In this straightforward, compelling account, Osterling shows how this paradox has evolved, and why it has persisted over the past fifty years. He draws attention to parallel political structures: a functioning set of civilian institutions that coexist alongside one of the most powerful closed, hierarchical political elites in Latin America. Osterling locates the central problem of the maintenance of interpersonal relations as being more important to the functioning of Colombian society than impersonal norms. This is a country in which political bosses vie with popular democracy for control of the country.

Rise and Decline of Brazil's New Unionism

Rise and Decline of Brazil's New Unionism
Author: Jeffrey Sluyter-Beltrão
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 488
Release: 2010
Genre: Brazil
ISBN: 9783034301145

This book explores the political trajectory of Latin America's most important contemporary labor movement. The New Unionism played a central role in Brazil's struggle for democracy in the 1980s and recast the country's subsequent party politics through its creation of the innovative Workers' Party (PT). The author breaks new ground by analyzing this celebrated prototype of «social movement unionism» as a heterogeneous alliance of component factions that evolves in relation to shifting economic, political, and ideological contexts. Through the prism of internal politics, he shows how Brazil's transitions - from military-authoritarian to liberal-democratic rule, from statist to free-market economic policies, and from a Leninist to a post-Leninist left - undermined the independent labor movement's commitments to internal democracy, political autonomy, and societal transformation. The book concludes with a comparative assessment of Brazilian, South African, and South Korean social movement unionisms' shared dilemmas, arguing that an adequate understanding of their relative declines demands more rigorous attention to the dynamic nexus between internal movement politics and shifting external environments.

The Spanish Anarchists and the Russian Revolution, 1917–24

The Spanish Anarchists and the Russian Revolution, 1917–24
Author: Arturo Zoffmann Rodriguez
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2023-10-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000965317

The Spanish Anarchists and the Russian Revolution, 1917–24 explores the impact of the Russian Revolution on the world’s most powerful anarchist movement, the Spanish National Confederation of Labour. The monograph traces the curve of euphoria followed by scepticism that characterized anarchist reactions to the Soviet experiment in 1917–24. This book unearths the interactions between anarchists and Bolsheviks, and assesses their significance for social conflict in Spain and for the foundation of international communism. The Spanish anarchists are a window to examine the global appeal of the Bolsheviks among diverse, non-Marxist militant groups at a time of cross-fertilization for the left internationally. Through the case study of the Spanish anarchists, this book highlights how identification with the victorious Russian Bolsheviks became a rousing device and a political asset at a time of intense social effervescence, when, in the eyes of many, world revolution seemed imminent. However, for heterodox, non-Marxist forces, such as the Spanish anarchists, the Soviet model had to be negotiated and adapted to local conditions and political traditions. This book later traces the ending of this phase of cross-fertilization at a time of defeat and demoralization for the labour movement in Spain and across Europe.

Anarchism in Latin America

Anarchism in Latin America
Author: Ángel J. Cappelletti
Publisher: AK Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2018-02-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1849352836

The available material in English discussing Latin American anarchism tends to be fragmentary, country-specific, or focused on single individuals. This new translation of Ángel Cappelletti's wide-ranging, country-by-country historical overview of anarchism's social and political achievements in fourteen Latin American nations is the first book-length regional history ever published in English. With a foreword by the translator. Ángel J. Cappelletti (1927–1995) was an Argentinian philosopher who taught at Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela. He is the author of over forty works primarily investigating philosophy and anarchism. Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University.

The Road to Anarchy

The Road to Anarchy
Author: Ángel Herrerín
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2020-07-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782846832

The Road to Anarchy is the result of an exhaustive investigation into the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) during the democratic years of the Second Republic. By analysing the course of the CNT in terms of its role in the labour conflict and the internal life and approach of the organisation (its ideology, its practice, its internal conflicts, the role of the individual and the weight of history) this book dismantles the long-held view that the CNT orchestrated three insurrections against the Republic. Key is analysis not only of the violence of the anarchists, but also that of the state. Two crucial themes emerge: the political struggle within the organisation, and its involvement in the revolution of October 1934 and in the events of the spring of 1936. Ángel Herrerín investigates the controversial relations of the anarchists with other political formations, such as the republicans, the socialists, Communists and Catalans, with whom the anarchists fought on the republican side during the Civil War. Special attention is paid to the crucial relationship with the socialist trade unions, the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), as this evolved from one of competition for trade-union dominance to the acceptance of anarcho-syndicalist practices by the socialists and collaboration between the two organisations. The book is based on wide-ranging archival research, including the Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, the National Historical Archive in Spain, the Foreign Office Archives in France and other national archives related to the repression of the CNT, such as those of the Army and Civil Guard in Spain. The study of the CNT in this timeframe is long overdue; the last similar study was undertaken by the US Democratic Congressman John Brademas in the 1950s, a renowned scholar of Spains social revolution.

Anarchism, Revolution, and Reaction

Anarchism, Revolution, and Reaction
Author: Angel Smith
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781845451769

The period from 1898 to 1923 was a particularly dramatic one in Spanish history; it culminated in the violent Barcelona "labor wars" and was only brought to a close with the coup d'état launched by the Barcelona Captain General, Miguel Primo de Rivera, in September 1923. In his detailed examination of the rise of the Catalan anarchist-syndicalist-led labor movement, the author blends social, cultural and political history in a novel way. He analyses the working class "from below" and the policies of the Spanish State towards labor "from above." Based on an in-depth usage of primary sources, the authors provides an unrivalled account of Catalan labor and the Catalan anarchist-syndicalist movement and thus makes an important contribution to our understanding of early twentieth-century Spanish history.