Sectoral clashes and forgotten classes : rural workers and the Peronist state, 1946-1948

Through a case study illustrating the 1946-1948 labor militancy among harvest workers in the province of Santa Fe, this study examines why rural workers failed to appear alongside their urban counterparts in the union movement under Perón. The Santa Fe harvest strikes demonstrate how rural workers struggled to integrate themselves into a broader Peronist labor movement. However, rural workers did not manage to link their struggle with urban forces and were ultimately unsuccessful in achieving their desired goals vis-à-vis the government. This is largely because rural workers protested unfair government policy towards the agricultural sector and disrupted the exportable harvest, an integral component of economic activity upon which Perón relied to finance industrialization and distributive social programming. As a result, Perón oppressed rural workers in the interests of his urban populist coalition and its plans for industrialization.