Challenging Pinochet's NeoLiberal Dictatorship: The Great Panal Strike of 1980

• In Event: The Politics of Capital and Labor Organizing

Abstract

The Great Panal textile Strike of 1980 was the first to fully challenge Pinochet’s neoliberal labor code. Its victory was sustaining the strike for the full 59 days that the new law allowed –and without any deaths or disappearances-- by combining traditional labor union solidarity with innovative social movement strategies that presaged the 1980s. But it was a phyrric victory: in the aftermath of the strike the Panal factories closed down and most of their workers were unemployed and blacklisted. Yet, it was also a symbolic victory which inspired other workers during the 1980s to test the limits of the new labor code and to mobilize civil society support, including the widespread social protests that began Chile’s democratic transition.

This paper will trace the experience of the Panal workers from the 1973 military coup through the 1980 strike and its aftermath, analyzing the movement within the factories, the decision to strike and the evolving character of the conflict in a Chile where the dictatorship considered labor relations a security issue and Pinochet’s neoliberal economic advisers saw no reason for a Chilean textile industry to exist.

The paper will conclude with an analysis of the aftermath and consequences of the strike, highlighting the lessons learned on both sides and the innovations that presaged the social movements of the decade to come. Lastly, the paper will analyze the role played by political parties in the strike and the lessons they drew from the strike and its aftermath.

Author

• Peter E Winn, Tufts University