“... I grew up there, and there I raised courage”. Gender, class and experience: the strike of Confecciones Patagónicas (Trelew- Chubut, 1997)

Abstract

The present work analyzes the strike carried out by a group of female workers of Confecciones Patagónicas -an outsourced textile workshop of the firm MATEPA (Manufacturas Textiles Patagónicas)- between February and May of 1997. The protest included the taking over and occupation of the MATEPA´s bulding, as a means to demand the payment of their salaries and indemnities after the closing of the company. Although the analysis focuses on this particular strike, it is framed in the general context of social relations at regional and national level during the 1990s. In this period social conflictivity intensified, leading to a confluence of multiple claims from workers of different sectors against the neoliberal policies. On the other hand, this work asks some preliminary questions about the meanings that the workers attributed to the conflict based on their class-gender experiences, and their entailment within and outside the work enviroment. In this regard, we propose to address the working class as a collective subject from the perspective of social history, also integrating the analysis of the role of gender relations.