Labor Reform and the Contradictions of “Growth with Equity” in Postdictatorship Chile

As the climax of considerable political mobilization, the fall of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1989 seemingly ushered in a new era for Chilean society. From within the moderate wing of the antidictatorship movement emerged a triumphant political coalition called the Concertacion, which was led by the resurgent Christian Democrat and Socialist parties. The convincing election victory of this coalition in March 1990 was portrayed as symbolizing a new beginning for Chile. Postdictatorship political practice, it was anticipated, would center on a liberal form of social democratization by which the regime would extend civil, social, and occupational rights to the working class and subaltern sectors. Such expectations were accentuated by the Concertacion's projected political program of "growth with equity," which promised to combine the benefits of growth with social democratization. Nonetheless, while the successive Concertaci6n governments of Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), Eduardo Frei (1994-1999), and Ricardo Lagos (2000-2005) have resolutely pursued the consolidation and intensification of the neoliberal accumulation trajectory, there is widespread disillusionment over the limited achievement of social goals. A conspicuous tension remains in the discrepancy between the Concertacion's rhetorical commitment to "growth with equity" and the reality of pronounced social polarization. Nowhere has the divergence between projections and accomplishments been more acute than in labor policy. Cheap and flexible labor with few rights to collective action has been central to the recovery and expansion of Chilean capitalist accumulation since the 1982 debt crisis. The subordination of labor through political repression and material immiseration in the dictatorship