ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we analyse the ways in which different models of national development affected labour conditions in Argentina by focusing on the case of steelworkers in San Nicolás de los Arroyos. Their case enables us to compare two different economic models, the first driven by economic deregulation and measures aimed at creating a flexible labour market and the second one marked by a return to protectionism and state-led regulation of the labour market. We explain an apparent contradiction in the goals of the new, post-neoliberal model launched in 2003 and the narratives of the workers themselves, who perceive more continuity than discontinuity between the neoliberal phase and the present. Drawing on our ethnographic data, we conclude that large companies have managed to continue their outsourcing practices as a means of perpetuating the flexibilization of their workforce despite the new economic and political regulatory framework.
