Between mutualism and institutionalization. The workers of the Southern Pacific Railroad of Mexico and the negotiation paths in the institutional period, 1917–1927

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the organization of workers of the South Pacific Railway Company of Mexico during the country’s initial constitutional decade. During this period, the management of their rights vacillated between mutualism and institutionalization. This analysis posits that workers in post-revolutionary Mexico did not immediately adhere to the provisions outlined in constitutional Article 123. Instead, these workers amalgamated mutualistic and normative elements as a negotiation tool in their conflicts against the capital. Through a review of bibliographic and documentary sources, this study reconstructs three distinct labor conflicts occurring in 1917, 1923, and 1927. I argue that the observed oscillation between mutualism and institutionalization was a consequence of various intertwined factors, of which the most relevant are the prevalence of general mutualism in Sonora, the legal ambiguity regarding the jurisdiction to arbitrate railway conflicts between local and federal authorities, and the influence of local political clientelism.