Agustín Gringo Tosco was an Argentine

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 union leader

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

, member of the CGT de los Argentinos and an important participant in the historic local uprising known as the Cordobazo

Cordobazo

The Cordobazo was a civil uprising in the city of Córdoba, Argentina, in the end of May 1969, during the military dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía, which occurred a few days after the Rosariazo, and a year after the French May '68...

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Thought and maturity

At 27 years old, he was the general secretary for Luz y Fuerza (Light and Power utilities workers) in the province of Córdoba. Tosco felt that nothing could substitute for general assemblies, which he considered superior to representative comities, and that labor struggles should not simply focus on salary demands. His ideology can be described as anti-imperialist

Anti-imperialism

Anti-imperialism, strictly speaking, is a term that may be applied to a movement opposed to any form of colonialism or imperialism. Anti-imperialism includes opposition to wars of conquest, particularly of non-contiguous territory or people with a different language or culture; it also includes...

, anti-capitalist

Anti-capitalism

Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....

, and anti-bureaucratic

Bureaucracy

A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...

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He constantly fought against bureaucracy in the union. One of his most famous enemies in this regard was José Ignacio Rucci

José Ignacio Rucci

José Ignacio Rucci was an Argentine politician and union leader, appointed general secretary of the CGT in 1970...

, another prominent leader in the CGT. About this, Tosco said the following, "Rucci and his disciples are prisoners of their commitment to the powerful, prisoners of the guardians who lend them the political apparatus, prisoners of a jail from which they can never escape: that of submission and indignity." Tosco and Rucci had many public clashes.

In addition to the struggles particular to his own union, he participated in the fight against the dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía

Juan Carlos Onganía

Juan Carlos Onganía Carballo was de facto president of Argentina from 29 June 1966 to 8 June 1970. He rose to power as military dictator after toppling, in a coup d’état self-named Revolución Argentina , the democratically elected president Arturo Illia .-Economic and social...

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His role in the Cordobazo

Cordobazo

The Cordobazo was a civil uprising in the city of Córdoba, Argentina, in the end of May 1969, during the military dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía, which occurred a few days after the Rosariazo, and a year after the French May '68...

On May 29, 1969 in the city of Córdoba, there was a popular uprising against the dictatorship of Onganía. Many workers and students confronted the military. After the Cordobazo, Tosco was condemned to eight years in prison by a military tribunal, but was free after 16 months. The Cordobazo was a milestone because is represented a loss of legitimacy for the Onganía government, and hastened its end. About the Cordobazo Tosco said, "it was a rebellion for the workers and the people(...) it came out of the working class and the masses. The importance of the Cordobazo is that it came from the workers and the students and that for their convictions they came out into the streets to fight."

After the Cordobazo

When he got out of prison, Tosco returned to Córdoba. With the vistory of Peronism in 1973, Tosco began to be persecuted. In 1974, after the police coup against the governor Ricardo Obregón Cano

Ricardo Obregón Cano

Ricardo Obregón Cano was an Argentine Justicialist Party politician. Born in Río Cuarto, Córdoba, he was Governor of Córdoba from May 25, 1973 to February 28, 1974...

, the Luz y Fuerza labor union was abolished and Tosco was forced to go into hiding. A while later he fell ill, but could not go to the hospital for fear of execution.

Agustín Tosco died at 45 years of age, on November 5, 1975, and thousands of people attended his funeral, despite threats from the government of María Estela Martínez and the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina

Alianza Anticomunista Argentina

The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance was a right-wing death squad active in Argentina during the mid-1970s, particularly active under Isabel Perón's rule . Initially associated with the Peronist right, the organisation was bitterly in conflict with the Peronist left and other left organizations...

(Argentine Anticomunist Alliance, a far right

Far right

Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...

 death squad

Death squad

A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extrajudicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign...

). Participants in Tosco's funeral were violently suppressed by the government.