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Tenants' strike of 1907

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Tenants’ strike of 1907
Conventillo of Buenos Aires
DateAugust - October 1907
Location
 Argentina
Caused byHigh rents, low wages
GoalsEight-hour day, rent decreases, salary increases
MethodsRent strike
Resulted inStrike suppressed
Parties
Lead figures

The Tenants' Strike or Broom Strike of 1907 was a popular movement against the rise in rents in tenant houses in the city of Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities, popularly called conventillos.[1] The strike began in August 1907, it lasted approximately 3 months and more than one hundred tenants[2] participated in the movement, with thirty-two thousand workers on strike.[3] It had a significant presence of anarchist and socialist activists.[4]

Background

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Argentina at the beginning of the 20th century

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Tenant strike in Buenos Aires in 1907. March of the Brooms through La Boca.

Agro-exporting Argentina, sustained by an open economy, formed its market and its nation-state around 1880. It became a country that received foreign capital and massive immigration, mainly Italians and Spanish people, who arrived in search of non-existent living and working conditions in Europe at the time, giving rise to a growing urbanization process.[5]

Between 1895 and 1905, the vegetative growth of the City of Buenos Aires reached 52.5% and total migration 65.5%, a percentage of which 51.8% belonged to non-natives.[6] For 1900, it was calculated that the migratory balance was about 50,485 people and in 1907 the figure practically doubled, reaching 119,861 people.[7]

The city became an important center of attraction for the newly arrived immigrants who settled as tenants or laborers in the rural environment or, alternatively, settled in the capital to participate in the economic life of the city.[8] After In 1890, the growth of the population aggravated the housing problem for the popular sectors. Buenos Aires spread to the periphery, forming new neighborhoods, but most of them settled in tenement houses, which proliferated throughout the city.[9]

The tenements were transformed into the most usual and characteristic workers accommodation.[10] In 1904, the Municipal Census indicated that there were 11.5 people per house in the Federal Capital, almost all of them on one floor. The statistics reported that of the 950,891 inhabitants of the city, 138,188 lived in the 43,873 rooms that made up the 2,462 Buenos Aires tenancy houses. That is, more than 10% of the population lived in tenements.[11]

Tenant strike.

From 1905, rents maintained an upward trend and by 1907 the price of a room was triple that of 1870. "The costs of humble rooms were eight times higher than in Paris and London."[12]

Living conditions in the tenements

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In 1900 the Conventillos used to have a cement patio, bathrooms and some showers. Between 20 and 70 people had a single latrine to attend to their needs and "the ammonia fumes that escape inside make those who enter them experience discomfort and tears."[13] The rooms were small in size, with little ventilation or windowless, where up to 10 people lived.[14]

The room in a central house cost around 20 pesos at least and could go up from 5 to 7 pesos more with a window facing the street, constituting a substantial part of the workers' budget.[15]

In 1890, the tenants organized a commission for the first time to take action against the landlords. The movement failed but resurfaced three years later from the attempt to form a "League Against Rentals", although general indifference ended up dissolving it.[12] In any case, the almost constant rise in rents generated, in 1905, the unusual joint proposal of anarchists, socialists and trade unionists who wrote a manifesto to propose the formation of a league against the high cost of living, although it did not materialize.

Tile in tribute to Miguel Pepe, the only fatal victim of the tenants' strike, 1907.

From then on, and through the action of subcommittees, propaganda and conferences, the preaching against the almost continuous rise in rents and tax charges that decimated the wages of the workers was intensified.[9]

Strike of 1907

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In 1906 the Argentine Regional Workers Federation (FORA) led the campaign for the reduction of rents and formed the League of Struggle against High Rents and Taxes.[16] In August 1907, through a municipal decree, there was a tax increase which was transferred to the price of the rooms located in the tenements. In this context, the tenement house on Calle Ituzaingó went on strike, refusing to pay the rent.[17] The strikers formed a central committee in search of new adhesions, reduction of work to 8 hours a day and a salary increase. By the beginning of October 1907, around 1000 conventillos went on strike, the movement spread through the cities of Rosario and Bahía Blanca.[2] As a result of the repression, the anarchist militant Miguel Pepe was assassinated by the police under orders of the Chief of Police Ramón Falcón.[18] In 1909, Falcón was in turn assassinated by an anarchist militant, of Ukrainian origin, named Simón Radowitzky.

The Tenant Strike was one of the most important demonstrations of the time, marking a turning point in subsequent struggles for the right to housing in Argentina.[19]

References

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  1. ^ Pignatelli, Adrián (14 August 2019). "La huelga de las escobas: cuando las mujeres de los conventillos salieron a la calle para "barrer la injusticia" por el aumento en los alquileres". Infobae (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  2. ^ a b Spalding, Hobart (October 1970). La clase trabajadora argentina. Documentos para su historia 1890/1912 (in Spanish). Galerna. pp. 451–453.
  3. ^ Guevara, Cecilia; Vega, Sergio; Atlas, Gabriel (June 1997). "La huelga de los Inquilinos en Boca" (PDF). Jornadas de la Carrera de Sociologia: Veinte Años Despues. Noviembre 1996. Taller Historia Urbana (in Spanish). p. 6. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
  4. ^ "El último conventillo". Clarín (in Spanish). 2 October 1997. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  5. ^ "Anarquistas: la huelga de lxs inquilinxs de 1907". LatFem (in Spanish). 17 November 2018. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  6. ^ RECCHENI de Lates, Zulma (1974). "CARACTERÍSTICAS DE LA POBLACIÓN URBANA: COMPOSICIÓN POR SEXOS, EDADES Y ORIGEN". La población de Argentina (in Spanish). Cicred Series. p. 137.
  7. ^ TORNQUIST, Ernesto (1920). "Población". El desarrollo económico de la República Argentina en los últimos cincuenta años (in Spanish). Ernesto Tornquist y Cía. p. 9.
  8. ^ "El Tribuno". El Tribuno (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  9. ^ a b Girbal-Blacha, Noemí (August 2000). "Historias de la Ciudad- Una revista de Buenos Aires" (in Spanish).
  10. ^ "La huelga de inquilinos de 1907". El Historiador. 7 November 2017.
  11. ^ PANETTIERI, José (1965). "Censo General de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, levantado en los días 16 y 24 de octubre de 1909, Buenos Aires". Los trabajadores en tiempos de la inmigración masiva en Argentina 1870.1910 (in Spanish). Universidad Nacional de la Plata. p. 44.
  12. ^ a b SCOBIE, James (1974). Buenos Aires, del centro a los barrios 1870-1910 (in Spanish). Solar/Hachette. p. 199.
  13. ^ "Boletín 5". DEPARTAMENTO NACIONAL DE TRABAJO (in Spanish). 1908. p. 231.
  14. ^ "Anarquistas: la huelga de lxs inquilinxs de 1907". La tinta (in Spanish). 7 December 2018. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  15. ^ "Las fuentes primarias en la reconstrucción e interpretación de los hechos históricos". Educ.ar (in Spanish). 3 August 2007. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
  16. ^ "Día del Inquilino: Más de cien años y la lucha continúa". Diario 99 (in Spanish). 1 October 2018. Archived from the original on 3 November 2018. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
  17. ^ Ceruti, Leónidas "Noni" (24 June 2018). "Las primeras huelgas en Argentina". La Izquierda Diario (in Spanish).
  18. ^ Rouco Buela, Juana (2011). Historia de un ideal vivido por una mujer (in Spanish). Tierra del Sur. p. 16.
  19. ^ Valencia, Luciano Andrés. "En la lucha por la vivienda: las huelgas inquilinarias a comienzos del siglo XX" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 20 April 2017. Retrieved 16 July 2016.

Bibliography

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  • Suriano, Juan. La huelga de inquilinos de 1907. CEAL, Buenos Aires, 1983.
  • Noemí M. Girbal-Blacha. La huelga de inquilinos de 1907 en Buenos Aires.[1]
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