Building Worker Power in Latin America: Possibilities and Challenges

Panelists:

• Jeffery R. Webber, Professor, Department of Politics, York University – The Labour of Extraction in Latin America: Outlines of a Theoretical Approach
• Chris Little, PhD candidate, Department of Politics, York University – Transnational farmworker migration and class formation: notes from fieldwork between Guatemala and Ontario
• Cirila Quintero, Professor and Researcher, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Border Studies Institute), Matamoros Campus – Mexico (will join via Zoom) – Unions and Workers in Mexico: between a New Labor Law and CUSMA
• Viviana Patroni, Professor Emerita, Department of Social Science, York University – Workers, worker organizing and the far right in Argentina

Description:

The panel explores recent developments in the everyday realities of workers and the conditions under which they organize, stemming from the economic and political changes that have occurred in Latin America over the last two decades. While a diversity of work experiences and of economic and political trends characterizes the region, high levels of inequality and growing precariousness are common among Latin American workers. The neoliberal economic and political transformation of the 1980s and 1990s is central in making sense of these features. Yet, the particular political trajectories and economic performance of the last two decades, including the rise of progressive movements and governments and also the radicalization of right wing forces, have created both new openings but also closed some avenues for workers’ collective action. The presenters address various facets of these conflicting processes to bring attention to the conditions under which workers must confront the realities of their own survival and the options for collective strategies.

Light refreshments will be provided.

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