Between a Shock and a Hard Place: The Dynamics of Labor-Backed Adjustment in Poland and Argentina

Governments in Argentina and Poland imposed radical neoliberal reforms with the cooperation of organized labor between 1989 and 1991. After 1991 most Argentine unions continued to support the Peronist government, while the Solidarity unions moved into opposition. Strong social linkages between governing parties and labor facilitated initial cooperation, but to endure sustained neoliberal reform party-labor alliances must be situated in an institutional and political context with more material incentives for labor cooperation. In Argentina the political strength of Peronism and the institutional legacies of corporatism provided such incentives, while in Poland few material or organizational incentives to cooperate existed.