Abstract

ZARAUZ LOPEZ, Héctor Luis. From Insubordination to Cooptation: The Oil Union and the Mobilizations of 1958 and 1959. Secuencia [online]. 2019, n.105, e1617.  Epub Aug 20, 2019. ISSN 2395-8464.  https://doi.org/10.18234/secuencia.v0i105.1617.

The article seeks to reconstruct the mobilization of oil workers in 1958 and 1959, observe the demands and strategies of the struggle and lastly, to describe the government’s tactics for maintaining control over this union. It documents the mobilizations of oil workers in Mexico City in 1958 and 1959, as well as their antecedents. It observes the causes and forms of the struggle and their association with other social sectors as well as the cooptation strategies implemented by the Mexican government. Accordingly, one can infer that oil workers received different treatment from the government from other movements. This, together with a negotiation strategy, enabled opposition leaders to join the official union system. All of the above took place within an environment of widespread social protest, led by unions affiliated to the government. The oil workers’ movement during that period has not been studied. Papers on trade unionism at that time have tended to focus on the protests of teachers and railroader workers, as well as the actions of the official trade union centers. This paper was largely constructed on the basis of first-hand sources.

Keywords : oil union; trade unions; strikes; stabilizing development; Adolfo Ruiz Cortines.

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