Teachers’ strikes in Argentina: Partisan alignments and public-sector labor relations

In a context of increasing teachers’ militancy in Argentina, this article provides the first empirical analysis of teachers’ strikes in all twenty-four Argentine provinces during the 1990s. Using a cross-provincial statistical analysis, it explains the wide variation across provinces and across time of Argentine teachers’ strikes. It demonstrates that political alignments between provincial governors and teachers’ unions explain these patterns better than organizational and institutional variables, which strongly shape public-sector labor relations in other countries. We emphasize the discretion of provincial governors, for both the application of labor regulations and budgetary appropriations in the politicization of provincial public-sector labor relations in Argentina, especially after the decentralization of education resulted in the provincialization of teachers’ protests.