"Un único y potente puño proletario" for Latinamerica: continental and international background, 1936-1938

Authors

  • Patricio Herrera González Doctor en Historia. Becario Conacyt, Centro de Estudios Históricos, El Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora

Abstract

This article provides the international and continental backgrounds that explain the intentions to achieve workers’ unification in Latin America. In January, 1936, two meetings held in Santiago de Chile with the presence of workers’ delegates from various countries discussed the main problems affecting the proletariat on the continent. The diagnosis was one: the lack of workers’ unity in the region did not collaborate in curbing abuses of the “bosses” and it was impossible to demand better social and labor guarantees to States without a large continental union structure. Delegates gathered in Santiago signed a pact to raise awareness among the workers about the need to unite. In Mexico, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, a renowned trade union leader, also issued a call for unity, promoting, between 1936-1938, the installation of a Latin American Labor Congress in order to enforce the covenant.

Keywords:

Covenant workers, American Conference of Labor, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, International Labour Office, International Red Union, Latin American Labor Congress