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Peru Organized Labor
In labor markets as weak as those of Peru from the
early
1970s onward, organized labor has not normally had any
great
bargaining power. It could affect the political balance,
but it
has not been able to do much to keep real earnings from
falling
when the economy declined. Peruvian labor has never been
more
than moderately organized in any case: unionization did
not take
off significantly until the political climate changed with
the
reformist military government of 1968. Labor has played a
more
active political role since that time, but has not so far
been
able to prevent deterioration of real wages
(see Labor Unions
, ch. 4).
Organized labor in Peru got off to a slow start in the
interwar period (1919-40), compared with active unionism in
Argentina,
Chile, and Venezuela. Still, the textile workers, in the
one
sizeable industry of the time, managed to defy the
government and
win a famous strike in 1919. They gave the credit to a
student
activist who stepped in to lead them and negotiated an
impressive
victory. The activist, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, went
on at
the beginning of the 1930s to found the American Popular
Revolutionary Alliance (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria
Americana-
-APRA), the country's first mass-based political party.
Haya de
la Torre simultaneously promoted organization of labor
through
the Confederation of Peruvian Workers (Confederación de
Trabajadores del Perú--CTP) and consolidated a close
partnership
between APRA and the CTP. The CTP was the dominant voice
of labor
until Haya de la Torre allied himself with the
conservative side
of the political spectrum during the 1960s. That move to
the
right then stimulated the growth of a rival Communist-led
labor
federation, the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers
(Confederación General de Trabajadores del Perú--CGTP).
Neither APRA nor the labor movement made much headway
under
the conservative governments in office up to the 1960s.
But after
the reformist military government took power in 1968,
unionization spread rapidly. More new unions were given
legal
recognition from 1968 to 1978 than in all prior Peruvian
history:
there were 2,152 recognized unions in 1968 and 4,500 by
1978. The
new unions, less tied to APRA, began to strike out more on
their
own to undertake joint negotiations and demonstrations
with
community groups of all kinds. The military government
began to
regard unions less as allies and more as sources of
opposition,
and in fact labor became a center of resistance to
military
authority all through the 1970s.
Although the Velasco government was committed in many
respects to support of popular organizations, its
relationships
with organized labor turned into conflicts in two
fundamental
ways. One was purely economic; the government was
initially
determined to prove its ability to avoid inflation, which
it
identified as evidence of the inherent weakness of
civilian
governments. Increase in wages was seen as a threat to
control of
inflation, and wages in general were considered a matter
to be
decided by government rather than unions.
The second and more general source of conflict was that
the Velasco government had a strongly
corporatist (see Glossary)
conception of social order, in which labor unions had
their place but had no business trying to change it. The government
was deeply opposed to theories of class conflict. Labor and
capital alike were expected to recognize that their interests had
to be reconciled for the good of the society as a whole. The
military welcomed and sponsored public organizations but distrusted
any signs of excessive autonomy.
Once in open conflict with the two main labor
confederations,
the government tried to undercut them by creating a new
one, the
Federation of Workers of the Peruvian Revolution (Central
de
Trabajadores de la Revolución Peruana--CTRP; see
Labor Unions
,
ch. 4). The new confederation received government help in
getting
favorable wage settlements and added to the scope of labor
organization but had little effect in actually weakening
the more
independent unions.
In the economic contraction following 1975, labor
played a
more active role of social protest than ever before. The
first
general strike in the country's history, in July 1977,
seemed to
herald a new epoch in labor relations in Peru. Labor's
support
for left-oriented parties, no longer so predominantly for
APRA,
became evident in the elections of 1980. In terms of wage
trends,
the more active role of organized labor has not seemed to
make
much difference. Organized labor certainly did not stop
the
devastating fall of real wages in the 1980s. Still,
average wages
for workers under collective bargaining contracts have
been much
higher than those for workers without them. As of December
1986,
the average wage for those with contracts was 2.2 times
that of
workers without them. That ratio fell to 1.7 by December
1989, as
everyone's real wages plunged.
Data as of September 1992
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