Latinnews Archive
Latin American Weekly Report - 9 May 1975
Chile: the Church militant
The Cardinal remains the most outspoken critic of the junta. But as the regime begins to outline its social programme, other voices are making themselves heard.
On May Day, Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez, archbishop of Santiago, took full advantage of his protected position to criticize the junta's economic programme. With the cathedral filled to capacity, he delivered a powerful attack on economic liberalism, the free market economy, the traditional definition of property, and the belief that capital should be regarded as the sole owner of the means of production. 'The principal engine of the economic life of a nation cannot be profit,' he said, 'nor must its basic law be the free play of supply and demand'. Young workers from the Juventud Obrera Catolica (JOC) sat on the chancel steps playing guitars, and the Cardinal was greeted with cries of 'Long Live the people's cardinal', and 'Long live the bishop of the poor'. Bearing in mind the fact that the minister of labour, General Nicanor Diaz Estrada, was present, the Cardinal felt obliged to warn his enthusiastic congregation that they were attending a religious service, not a political meeting.
General Diaz was also present on May Day at a rather bleaker gathering in the huge Teatro Caupolican, where various gremios or middleclass professional groups had organised a meeting. Originally President Augusto Pinochet and finance minister Jorge Cauas had been scheduled to attend, but they understandably cried off at the last moment. The traditional venue for the mass meetings of the parties of the Left, the Caupolican was only half full. While various speakers praised the military government and criticised the 'obsolete' political parties, there was a considerable groundswell of hostility to the new emergency economic programme. Carlos Ortega Rocco, president of the bank employees' federation, complained that workers were 'persecuted', and that low wages and unemployment had become the norm. Guillermo Medina, one of the organisers of the famous white collar strike at the El Teniente copper mine in the last year of the Unidad Popular, deplored the fact that 'many leaders who were with us on 1 May 1974 are not here today'.
Yet another meeting took place on May Day. In the Diego Portales building, EX-UNCTAD, General Pinochet outlined the details of the new labour code and signed the estatuto social de la empresa. The latter governs the new company committees that are to be set up, on which the workers will be represented 'with equal rights' to other participants. Theoretically the workers will be able to buy shares in the companies in which they work -- but that still seems a long way ahead.
The labour code, which can be modified during the next two months according to suggestions received, removes the old distinction between obreros (workers) and empleados (white collar workers), replacing them with the all-embracing category of trabajador (worker). In addition, workers in the public sector, hitherto denied the right to union activity, are now granted such a right -- though in the limited sphere in which unions now operate the gesture may not be much appreciated. Furthermore, workers are also permitted not to join a union, thereby destroying the basis for union solidarity. The significance of the labour code lies not so much in its details as in the fact that at last the Chilean working class has a framework within which to operate. Clearly the new system will work to its disadvantage, but at least it now knows the new rules of the game.
Whatever possibilities the new law may give to a resurgence of labour pressure, it will take place against the background of tough new security legislation announced on 30 April. The new decree-law dealing with 'political terrorism, extremism and violent action' establishes new penalties for such offences as possession of subversive leaflets and flystickers.
With the home front battened down, Jorge Cauas and a senior economic team have now left for a week's active lobbying in Washington, while Raul Saez, the man in charge of the country's external economic relations, has left for Paris to meet some of the European creditors. In the United States at any rate there seems reason to believe that the Chileans will receive some satisfaction as a result of the latest changes.
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