ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the formative period of the Argentine working class movement, with particular reference to the period between the introduction of early forms of factory production in the 1890s and the events of 1919. Compared with the rest of Latin America, the trade union movement in Argentina has traditionally been strong. Argentina of course the organisational form of the capitalist mode of production - the factory - was not present in the early stages. Immigration made a major contribution to the rapid rate of growth of Argentina's population. Argentina national origin, the descendants of the gauchos driven to the saladeros by Rosas and the more recent flow of internal migrants to the capital after the definitive collapse of the provincial rebellions in the 1880s. The crisis of Barings in London and the subsequent financial and trade dislocations provided a boost to industrialisation in Argentina.
