Rebellion in Patagonia by Osvaldo Bayer

Author:Osvaldo Bayer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AK Press
Published: 2016-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX: THE VICTORS

(FOR HE’S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW)

“The ranchers dearly wanted the revolt put down before the shearing began. The numerous executions sowed terror and allowed them to force their peons back to work for lower pay.”

(Frigate Captain Dalmiro Sáenz’s report to the naval minister on the second strike.

Confidential Document No. 443,

January 14, 1922)

For Varela, the bitter part was over. There would be no more fighting and no more sleepless nights. Now it was time to celebrate his victory. The time had come for banquets, receptions, and the admiration of the mighty, which he had worked so hard to earn.

But even before the tables were set and the laudatory speeches written for the Liberator of Patagonia, the mighty had already begun to reap the benefits of Varela’s actions. They had used him. Now everything was clear, the truth could finally be seen. Everything that has been written about whether or not strikers were executed, every argument that the Radical Civic Union and the military had used to defend themselves and all the theories about Chile’s intervention in Argentine Patagonia can be disproven by analyzing the following document, drafted by the Río Gallegos Rural Society and printed on December 10th, 1921 in La Unión:

RANCHERS:

The Rural Society has decided to set the following prices for ranch employees:

Shearers, 12 pesos per 100 animals

Peons, in general, 80 pesos per month

Carters, 90 pesos

Day laborers, 5 pesos per day

Herders, 100 pesos per month

Cooks, 120 pesos

Balers (Ferrier press) 150 pesos per bale

Drovers with horses (per day, meals included) 12 pesos

Ranch herders, 5 extra pesos

These prices will be applicable as of the 15th of this month.

Río Gallegos, December 10, 1921.

—Ibón Noya, President; Edelmiro A. Correa Falcón,

Secretary General

The landowners, in other words, had taken advantage of the destruction of every labor organization in Santa Cruz and imposed a new labor arrangement, motu proprio, in the midst of Varela’s campaign of persecution and extermination. They decided to slash wages in open defiance of the Yza settlement, which had been approved by the governor and ratified by the National Labor Department. Let’s compare the new wages with those established by law:

Peons, 120 pesos (now 80)

Carters, 130 pesos (now 90)

Herders, 140 pesos (now 100)

Cooks, 160 pesos (now 120)

Drovers, 25 pesos per day (now 12)

For most workers, this meant that their wages were cut by a full third, while daily wages for drovers were cut in half. The other working conditions that the Workers’ Society had fought so hard for are not even mentioned. The only victors in the dramatic events in Patagonia were the landowners, and their victory was total. They even overruled the decisions of the Argentine Army itself and nobody said a word. After the pacification campaign, every ranch in the region began to apply the new “prices,” as the Rural Society called wages.

So, who was right? Should we believe the Workers’ Society and Antonio Soto when they said that it was the bosses who had declared war on the workers and forced them into going on strike? The

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