"For the sake of the Nation". Military Management in State companies. Integrative and represive practices over workforce from a case study. The Río Santiago Shipyard, 1973-1976

Abstract

Historiography and social science in general have analyzed the role of the military forces as key central actors in the Argentine political scene. However, its specific actions within state and military managment companies and the concurrent development of labor relations have had little attention. This paper poses an aproach to this issue by addressing the relationships between managment and labor organization and struggle in the case study of Astilleros Rio Santiago during the last phase of Import Substitution Industrialization.
This brief paper aims to analyze the complex relationship between two social processes in 1974-1976 We address the process of grassroots organization and mobilization at the Rio Santiago Shipyard (Astillero Rio Santiago) in dialogue with those management actions and practices that can be defined as a sort of authoritarian paternalism. It is our hypothesis that the display of disciplinary, coactive and repressive measures over the workforce pursued the hegemonic recomposition of the military order in the factory prior to the 1976 Coup d’Etat.