The Chilean Labor Union Leader: A Preliminary Report on His Background and Attitudes

Abstract

This article is intended to be a contribution from the sociological and social psychological points of view to the growing literature on trade unions in the developing countries. As in the case of the United States and England when the field of industrial relations began to establish itself, the first studies of developing countries were almost exclusively historical and legal. The other social sciences, sociology and psychology in particular, made a tardy appearance. Only as labor and the institutions fashioned by labor became fully legitimate was the kind of entry needed for such studies sought and obtained. Exceptions occur, of course, in the writings of individuals whose personal vision and acceptability was such as to enable them to make a multidisciplinary contribution to the field from the beginning, the Webbs being an outstanding example. The study of labor-management relations in developing economies is likely to repeat this sequence of stages, although in telescoped form. For Latin America in particular--and is no exception--treatises on the labor code have long been available, and likewise studies of at least some important periods in the history of the Chilean labor movement. Recently, Alexander's Labor Relations in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile has enabled the student to obtain a panoramic view of the trade union movements in these three countries. The author not only describes the evolution of the structure of the movements, but also gives some of the social, political, and economic history of these countries to make both the past and the present more comprehensible. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)

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