ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses how ruling elites in South American countries have perpetually sought to tame the autonomous and emancipatory potential of organized labour whilst unions have often resisted sometimes been complicit in the process. Unions have placed, so to speak, one foot on each side of the picket line. Several features of South America's state formation processes and industrial development had a profound impact on the evolution of the region's labour law, industrial relations and governance practices. The chapter explores why different governance strategies have been implemented at various stages during the twentieth century. It examines how either granting concessions, co-opting or repressing the movement via the institutions of the state or civil society have been chosen in response to challenges from organised labour. Corporatism declined as a labour governance mechanism in South America in the 1990s as a result of the exhaustion of an accumulation and redistribution model that created a mutual dependency between the state and organised labour.
