Company Towns in the Americas: Landscape, Power, and Working-Class Communities

CHAPTER 9 "Labor and Community in Postwar Argentina: The Industry of Agricultural Machinery in Firmat, Santa Fe"

198 chapter nine Labor and Community in Postwar Argentina The Industry of Agricultural Machinery in Firmat, Santa Fe silvia simonassi In 1949, Roque Vassalli, a self-made man and son of Italian immigrants, opened the first factory of agricultural machinery in Firmat, a small town of about eight thousand people located in the southern part of the Santa Fe province. This chapter explores the history of Vassalli Metallurgical Factory and its impact on social and urban relations in Firmat between the establishment of the factory in 1949 and the early 1970s. Although Roque Vassalli did not build a traditional company town in Firmat, he exerted a strong influence over the city and its residents . He was a successful industrial owner, one of the largest employers, president of a famous local sports club, and head of the municipal government for twenty years. Firmat’s residents, workers, and local unions developed a complex relationship with Vassalli and his company. While they consented to and accepted his influence and many of the benefits he provided, they also resisted and made efforts to improve working conditions, joining national labor organizations such as the Unión Obrera Metalúrgica. The history of Firmat and Vassalli Metallurgical Factory illustrates how employers controlled social and political institutions and urban space, extending their influence and power beyond the factory and into the local community. Vassalli’s experience and practices were also unique and different from those of other places in Argentina, as they were a direct response to the characteristics of the region and of the agricultural machinery industry. The history of how Firmat became the “capital of agricultural machinery” in Labor and Community in Argentina • 199 post–World War II Argentina is emblematic of the social and economic transformation of the humid Pampa since the nineteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century, Firmat and other small towns in the humid Pampa supported the growth of commercial agriculture and the production of wheat and maize. The concentration of land in a few hands and abusive working conditions in the countryside had inspired rural workers to organize in the early 1900s; and labor, political, and social institutions expanded throughout the province. The transformation and mechanization of agriculture that started in the 1920s accelerated a process of migration from the countryside into these towns and cities. In the 1940s–1950s, propelled by changes in the national economy and President Juan Domingo Perón’s economic policies, places like Firmat experienced a rapid process of industrialization. In the following years, the establishment of factories and plants such as the Vassalli Metallurgical Factory completely transformed social and economic relations throughout the province, creating new forms of urbanization and labor relations. To be able to produce the agricultural machinery, Vassalli envisioned a factory town in which he would develop paternalistic practices to control labor and social relations. the transformation of the argentinean countryside The history of Firmat and the Vassalli Metallurgical Factory was shaped by the transformation of the countryside and agricultural production that had started in the 1870s. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, commercial agriculture , based on the production and export of agricultural products such as wheat and maize, consolidated in Argentina. The region known as the humid Pampa, located south of the province of Santa Fe, became the center of agricultural growth. Its rich soils, the good transportation networks, and the influence of the fluvial port of Rosario guaranteed the success of export agriculture. On the eve of this agricultural boom, the region still had very diverse forms of land ownership: a combination of small-, medium-, and large-sized properties . However, the agricultural boom gave new value to the land and increased the concentration of land in a few hands. In the area near Firmat, by the end of the nineteenth century, 52 percent of the land was owned by only 3 percent of landowners, and large estates (called latifundios) controlled local economic and political power.1 The transformation of the countryside also increased tenant farming and reinforced many of its abuses. The independence of land owners contrasted with tenants’ working arrangements. While owners of small- and medium-sized plots of land planned production and directly hired the labor force (permanent 200 • silvia simonassi and seasonal workers), tenants were controlled by large landowners who made all the decisions regarding cultivation, harvesting, and maintenance. A large number of agricultural peons and seasonal workers worked the...