Paternalism and living conditions in the sugar mills of Tucumán. Ends of the 19th century and beginning of the XXth

Abstract

The aim of this work is to establish which social benefits were granted by the owners of sugar mills in his factories and what relation they had these benefits with the conceptions that the manufacturers had concerning the "social question" in a period that spreads from ends of the 19th century until beginning of the 20th century. The sugar activity demonstrated early the need to possess a disciplined workforce and to achieve it there was important the support of the public power that designed a legal frame that was endorsing the strategies opened by the factories and the cane planters to assure this aim. Together with this coercive legislation, the manufacturers of Tucumán were granting also a series of benefits as housing, insurances, medical primary assistance and education. That is to say, that from early times the coercive practices combined with a welfare policy and it turns out from interest to offer some explanatory key of the sense of these actions. The existing differences between the sugar mills they were translated in marked inequality in the benefits that the workers were receiving, but undoubtedly it was the belonging to the factory as worker what was assuring the housing, the share and the attention medicates and therefore loss of the labor position not only was implying the loss of the salary but also of the place of residence and the access to the benefits.