Lorenzo Miguel
Encyclopedia
Lorenzo Miguel was a prominent Argentine labor leader closely associated with the steelworkers' union.
in Buenos Aires
. Entering the labor force in 1945 as a peon
in his neighborhood's CAMEA steel mill
, Miguel took up amateur boxing
as a pastime, winning 13 of the 19 matches he fought in; a knockout
defeat at Buenos Aires' famed Luna Park
led him to abandon the pursuit, however. His election as shop steward by his coworkers at CAMEA in 1952 first brought him to the attention of the leadership at the Union of Metallurgy Workers (UOM), a growing body within the CGT
and its 62 unions. Miguel married a CAMEA coworker, Elena Ramos, with whom he ha two children, in 1958, though the violent 1955 overthrow of the populist President Juan Perón
led to official harassment of many in the labor movement, including Miguel (who spent much of the 1959-62 period in jail). Following President Arturo Frondizi
's restoration of the CGT's right to political activity, the UOM elected the conciliatory Augusto Vandor
as their leader in early 1962 and with him, the frugal Lorenzo Miguel as treasurer.
President Frondizi was forced to resign following his overtures to the CGT and Peronists, leading the exiled Perón to oppose further dialogue with the Argentine government. This was opposed by Vandor, however, who began calling for a "Peronism without Perón" until a 1966 coup d'état that installed the anti-labor President Juan Carlos Onganía
forced organized labor to rally around their exiled benefactor. Reconciled with Perón and the leader of a UOM with over 400,000 members (a fifth of the CGT), Vandor was Argentina's most powerful labor leader when he was assassinated in a brutal June 1969 assault on his bureau at the UOM, who, following an acrimonious power struggle, elected Miguel as Secretary General in March 1970. He leveraged this victory to advance a rival within the UOM, José Ignacio Rucci
, as the new Secretary General of the CGT, then the largest labor union in South America. The pragmatic Miguel thus turned a rival into an ally, while impeding the more combative Light and Power workers' leader, Agustín Tosco
, from rising to the powerful post.
. Finding common cause with Perón's influential private assistant, José López Rega
, Miguel helped him finance El Caudillo ("The Strongman"), a fascist periodical that served as the public relations arm of López Rega's newly-organized death squad
, the Triple A
. Miguel's ties to the group were first exposed after June 20, 1973, when UOM heavies reportedly helped the Triple A ignite a riot at a massive gathering in honor of Perón's return to Argentina. The UOM's presumptive role, though minor, forced Miguel attend a summit with his archenemies, the violently leftist Montoneros
, in which he denied complicity and arrived at a mutual understanding. This cordiality was shattered, however, by the September 25 assassination of CGT head José Ignacio Rucci
, an act for which the Montoneros took credit and which turned Miguel into their implacable enemy. The UOM then took part in a February 1974 police coup that led to the violent exit of leftist Córdoba Province
Governor Ricardo Obregón Cano
, elected in 1973 as a Peronist (FREJULI) candidate, and Miguel helped persuade the aging Perón to promote a right-wing Admiral and personal friend, Emilio Massera, as Head of the Navy
, as well as to break with leftist Peronists shortly before his July 1974 passing.
UOM's Buenos Aires headquarters then became a base of operations for the Triple A, one of whose operatives, Alejandro Giovenco, died when a bomb intended for the leftist Peronist Youth detonated in his possession, instead. The unwanted attention this brought on Miguel was compounded by the discovery of the murder of Hugo Dubchek - Miguel's bodyguard - reportedly during a large movement of arms through the building, in whose furnace his remains were found. The November 1974 election of leftist shop steward Alberto Piccinini at ACINDAR's important Villa Constitución
steel mill prompted Miguel to help the company lobby President Isabel Perón (the leader's widow) for an armed intervention, which took place in a March 1975 police assault on the facility. The resulting arrests led to the "disappearances" of over 100 of some of the first victims of the later infamous Dirty War
.
Miguel's allegiance with López Rega was strained when, in May, the mercurial death squad leader prevailed on Mrs. Perón to install a protégé as head of the critical Economy Ministry, Celestino Rodrigo. Rodrigo quickly unveiled an austerity package which, attempting to deal with the country's yawning trade gap, shocked markets with a sudden halving of the peso
's value, which paralyzed new construction and industrial spending and threw the CGT (particularly steelworkers) against the plan. This forced Miguel to lead the reluctant CGT leadership into a general strike
in July, the first ever against a Peronist administration. Mrs. Péron yielded by dismissing Rodrigo and López Rega, who was exiled to Spain; but the crisis led most public figures to call for her resignation, raising the possibility of a military coup d'état
. Advising her to advance elections five months, Miguel became the leading voice among the few who still supported seeing the President complete her term in office. His call for loyalty, a stance he described as "verticalist", lost its little support following a new, sharp devaluation of the shredded peso in February 1976 and a violent March 24 coup resulted in Miguel's arrest, along with the President and thousands of others.
(appointed Minister of the Economy by the new regime) and on his friendship with Admiral Massera who, as Head of the Navy became the second-highest ranking public official in Argentina. These connections protected him from torture; but Miguel's accounts were frozen and he remained in prison for three years and spent another year in house arrest, leading him to sever his ties to the disloyal Massera. Emerging from his reclusion in 1980, and participated in the reconstitution of 25 of the more active unions into the CGT-Brasil (named after their Brasil Street address), supporting the replacement of Raúl Baldassini with the more confrontational Saúl Ubaldini
. Miguel also retook the reins of an UOM hobbled by the massive industrial layoffs brought about by Martínez de Hoz's policies.
These developments turned him into a vocal opponent of the dictatorship
. Following the worst economic crisis since the great depression and the tragic invasion of the Falklands
, the dictatorship called for elections
in 1983. Facing a divided Justicialist Party
(Peronists), Miguel's support of former Senate
leader Ítalo Lúder
(an ally during his mid 1970s attacks on the left) was instrumental to the party's securing a nominee, albeit two months late. The rival centrist UCR
pointed to this move as evidence that Lúder was supported by the violent right and was, by extension, likely to grant the anxious outgoing military leadership blanket pardons for their "Dirty War
." The argument resonated among voters, giving UCR nominee Raúl Alfonsín
an ample victory (the UCR's first against a Peronist candidate).
Following promises to the contrary, Alfonsín turned to increasingly conservative policies in the face of an inherited financial crisis and massive inflation (the world's highest, at the time). Miguel, who led a decimated UOM with a membership (150,000) less than half of its 1970s level, became increasingly marginal to the national discourse; by 1990, he was relegated to helping mediate conflicts between Ubaldini and Alfonsín's successor, President Carlos Menem
. Menem, a lifelong Peronist who had been nominated partly with Miguel's last-minute support, quickly took to privatizing Argentina's array of State enterprises, a surprise move opposed by the CGT for the many layoffs it caused. The now compliant Miguel was compelled to call off a strike even after Menem's 1991 sell-off of SOMISA, then Argentina's largest steelmaker, and to support Menem's 1995 reelection bid. Following a decade of Argentina's first (and only) anti-labor Peronist administration, an ally of Miguel's, Buenos Aires Province
Governor Eduardo Duhalde
was soundly defeated in the 1999 presidential election.
Suffering from a worsening kidney
ailment, Miguel considered giving his support to San Luis
Governor Adolfo Rodríguez Saá
's (unsuccessful) candidacy for President; but died in a Buenos Aires clinic at the end of 2002. He was 75.
Early life and his rise in the UOM
Lorenzo Marcelo Miguel was born and raised in the working-class borough of Villa LuganoVilla Lugano
Villa Lugano is a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, located in the West of the city. It has a population of approximately 114,000 people....
in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
. Entering the labor force in 1945 as a peon
Peon
The words peon and peonage are derived from the Spanish peón . It has a range of meanings but its primary usage is to describe laborers with little control over their employment conditions.-English usage:...
in his neighborhood's CAMEA steel mill
Steel mill
A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel.Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. It is produced in a two-stage process. First, iron ore is reduced or smelted with coke and limestone in a blast furnace, producing molten iron which is either cast into pig iron or...
, Miguel took up amateur boxing
Amateur boxing
Amateur boxing is practised at the collegiate level, at the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games, and in many other venues sponsored by amateur boxing associations. Amateur boxing bouts are short in duration and fighters wear head protection, so this type of competition prizes point-scoring rather...
as a pastime, winning 13 of the 19 matches he fought in; a knockout
Knockout
A knockout is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, Karate and others sports involving striking...
defeat at Buenos Aires' famed Luna Park
Luna Park, Buenos Aires
For any of the amusement parks of the same name, see Luna Park; for any other use of the term, see Luna Park Luna Park is an 8,000-seat arena, located on the corner of Corrientes and Bouchard Avenues, in the barrio of San Nicolás, east Buenos Aires city and near Puerto Madero...
led him to abandon the pursuit, however. His election as shop steward by his coworkers at CAMEA in 1952 first brought him to the attention of the leadership at the Union of Metallurgy Workers (UOM), a growing body within the CGT
General Confederation of Labour (Argentina)
The General Confederation of Labour of the Argentine Republic is a national trade union centre of Argentina founded on September 27, 1930, as the result of the merge of the USA and the COA trade union centres...
and its 62 unions. Miguel married a CAMEA coworker, Elena Ramos, with whom he ha two children, in 1958, though the violent 1955 overthrow of the populist President Juan Perón
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
led to official harassment of many in the labor movement, including Miguel (who spent much of the 1959-62 period in jail). Following President Arturo Frondizi
Arturo Frondizi
Arturo Frondizi Ercoli was the President of Argentina between May 1, 1958, and March 29, 1962, for the Intransigent Radical Civic Union.-Early life:Frondizi was born in Paso de los Libres, Corrientes Province...
's restoration of the CGT's right to political activity, the UOM elected the conciliatory Augusto Vandor
Augusto Vandor
Augusto Timoteo Vandor was an Argentine trade unionist leader, military and politician.-Career:Vandor was born Bovril, Entre Ríos Province, to a Dutch father and a French mother, in 1923. He enlisted in the Argentine Navy in 1940, and later became an officer in the ARA Comodoro Py warship...
as their leader in early 1962 and with him, the frugal Lorenzo Miguel as treasurer.
President Frondizi was forced to resign following his overtures to the CGT and Peronists, leading the exiled Perón to oppose further dialogue with the Argentine government. This was opposed by Vandor, however, who began calling for a "Peronism without Perón" until a 1966 coup d'état that installed the anti-labor President 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...
forced organized labor to rally around their exiled benefactor. Reconciled with Perón and the leader of a UOM with over 400,000 members (a fifth of the CGT), Vandor was Argentina's most powerful labor leader when he was assassinated in a brutal June 1969 assault on his bureau at the UOM, who, following an acrimonious power struggle, elected Miguel as Secretary General in March 1970. He leveraged this victory to advance a rival within the UOM, José Ignacio Rucci
José Ignacio Rucci
José Ignacio Rucci was an Argentine politician and union leader, appointed general secretary of the CGT in 1970...
, as the new Secretary General of the CGT, then the largest labor union in South America. The pragmatic Miguel thus turned a rival into an ally, while impeding the more combative Light and Power workers' leader, Agustín Tosco
Agustín Tosco
Agustín Gringo Tosco was an Argentine union leader, member of the CGT de los Argentinos and an important participant in the historic local uprising known as the Cordobazo.-Thought and maturity:At 27 years old, he was the general secretary for Luz y Fuerza...
, from rising to the powerful post.
The Peronist revival
This opposition to leftists within the labor movement intensified following Peronists' return to power in a March 1973 electoral landslideArgentine general election, March 1973
The first Argentine general election of 1973 was held on 11 March. Voters chose both the President and their legislators and with a turnout of 85.5%, it produced the following results:-President:...
. Finding common cause with Perón's influential private assistant, José López Rega
José López Rega
José López Rega was Argentina's Minister of Social Welfare during the Peronist government started in 1973 by Juan Perón and continued after Perón's death in 1974 by his third wife and vice-president, Isabel Martínez de Perón , until the coup d'etat of 1976 that initiated the so-called National...
, Miguel helped him finance El Caudillo ("The Strongman"), a fascist periodical that served as the public relations arm of López Rega's newly-organized 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...
, the Triple A
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...
. Miguel's ties to the group were first exposed after June 20, 1973, when UOM heavies reportedly helped the Triple A ignite a riot at a massive gathering in honor of Perón's return to Argentina. The UOM's presumptive role, though minor, forced Miguel attend a summit with his archenemies, the violently leftist Montoneros
Montoneros
Montoneros was an Argentine Peronist urban guerrilla group, active during the 1960s and 1970s. The name is an allusion to 19th century Argentinian history. After Juan Perón's return from 18 years of exile and the 1973 Ezeiza massacre, which marked the definitive split between left and right-wing...
, in which he denied complicity and arrived at a mutual understanding. This cordiality was shattered, however, by the September 25 assassination of CGT head José Ignacio Rucci
José Ignacio Rucci
José Ignacio Rucci was an Argentine politician and union leader, appointed general secretary of the CGT in 1970...
, an act for which the Montoneros took credit and which turned Miguel into their implacable enemy. The UOM then took part in a February 1974 police coup that led to the violent exit of leftist Córdoba Province
Córdoba Province (Argentina)
Córdoba is a province of Argentina, located in the center of the country. Neighboring provinces are : Santiago del Estero, Santa Fe, Buenos Aires, La Pampa, San Luis, La Rioja and Catamarca...
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...
, elected in 1973 as a Peronist (FREJULI) candidate, and Miguel helped persuade the aging Perón to promote a right-wing Admiral and personal friend, Emilio Massera, as Head of the Navy
Argentine Navy
The Navy of the Argentine Republic or Armada of the Argentine Republic is the navy of Argentina. It is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, together with the Army and the Air Force....
, as well as to break with leftist Peronists shortly before his July 1974 passing.
UOM's Buenos Aires headquarters then became a base of operations for the Triple A, one of whose operatives, Alejandro Giovenco, died when a bomb intended for the leftist Peronist Youth detonated in his possession, instead. The unwanted attention this brought on Miguel was compounded by the discovery of the murder of Hugo Dubchek - Miguel's bodyguard - reportedly during a large movement of arms through the building, in whose furnace his remains were found. The November 1974 election of leftist shop steward Alberto Piccinini at ACINDAR's important Villa Constitución
Villa Constitución
Villa Constitución is a city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, and the head town of the Constitución Department. It is located on the south-western banks of the Paraná River between the courses of the Arroyo Pavón and the Arroyo del Medio, about 214 km south from the provincial capital,...
steel mill prompted Miguel to help the company lobby President Isabel Perón (the leader's widow) for an armed intervention, which took place in a March 1975 police assault on the facility. The resulting arrests led to the "disappearances" of over 100 of some of the first victims of the later infamous Dirty War
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
.
Miguel's allegiance with López Rega was strained when, in May, the mercurial death squad leader prevailed on Mrs. Perón to install a protégé as head of the critical Economy Ministry, Celestino Rodrigo. Rodrigo quickly unveiled an austerity package which, attempting to deal with the country's yawning trade gap, shocked markets with a sudden halving of the peso
Historical exchange rates of Argentine currency
The following table contains the monthly historical exchange rate of the different currencies of Argentina, expressed in Argentine currency units per United States dollar...
's value, which paralyzed new construction and industrial spending and threw the CGT (particularly steelworkers) against the plan. This forced Miguel to lead the reluctant CGT leadership into a general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
in July, the first ever against a Peronist administration. Mrs. Péron yielded by dismissing Rodrigo and López Rega, who was exiled to Spain; but the crisis led most public figures to call for her resignation, raising the possibility of a military coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
. Advising her to advance elections five months, Miguel became the leading voice among the few who still supported seeing the President complete her term in office. His call for loyalty, a stance he described as "verticalist", lost its little support following a new, sharp devaluation of the shredded peso in February 1976 and a violent March 24 coup resulted in Miguel's arrest, along with the President and thousands of others.
Persecution, return and twilight
Miguel counted on his former alliance with Acindar CEO José Alfredo Martínez de HozJosé Alfredo Martínez de Hoz
José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz was an Argentine executive and policy maker. He served as Minister of the Economy under de facto President Jorge Rafael Videla between 1976 and 1981, and shaped economic policy during the self-styled National Reorganization Process military dictatorship.-Early...
(appointed Minister of the Economy by the new regime) and on his friendship with Admiral Massera who, as Head of the Navy became the second-highest ranking public official in Argentina. These connections protected him from torture; but Miguel's accounts were frozen and he remained in prison for three years and spent another year in house arrest, leading him to sever his ties to the disloyal Massera. Emerging from his reclusion in 1980, and participated in the reconstitution of 25 of the more active unions into the CGT-Brasil (named after their Brasil Street address), supporting the replacement of Raúl Baldassini with the more confrontational Saúl Ubaldini
Saúl Ubaldini
Saúl Edólver Ubaldini was an Argentine labor leader and parliamentarian for the Peronist Justicialist Party....
. Miguel also retook the reins of an UOM hobbled by the massive industrial layoffs brought about by Martínez de Hoz's policies.
These developments turned him into a vocal opponent of the dictatorship
National Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process was the name used by its leaders for the military government that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In Argentina it is often known simply as la última junta militar or la última dictadura , because several of them existed throughout its history.The Argentine...
. Following the worst economic crisis since the great depression and the tragic invasion of the Falklands
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
, the dictatorship called for elections
Argentine general election, 1983
The Argentine general election of 1983 was held on 30 October and marked the return of Democracy after the 1976's dictatorship self-known as National Reorganization Process...
in 1983. Facing a divided Justicialist Party
Justicialist Party
The Justicialist Party , or PJ, is a Peronist political party in Argentina, and the largest component of the Peronist movement.The party was led by Néstor Kirchner, President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007, until his death on October 27, 2010. The current Argentine president, Cristina Fernández de...
(Peronists), Miguel's support of former Senate
Argentine Senate
The Argentine Senate is the upper house of the Argentine National Congress. It has 72 senators: three for each province and three for the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires...
leader Ítalo Lúder
Ítalo Argentino Lúder
Ítalo Argentino Lúder was an Argentinian politician who served as the acting President of Argentina from September 13, 1975 until October 16, 1975, for Isabel Perón....
(an ally during his mid 1970s attacks on the left) was instrumental to the party's securing a nominee, albeit two months late. The rival centrist UCR
Radical Civic Union
The Radical Civic Union is a political party in Argentina. The party's positions on issues range from liberal to social democratic. The UCR is a member of the Socialist International. Founded in 1891 by radical liberals, it is the oldest political party active in Argentina...
pointed to this move as evidence that Lúder was supported by the violent right and was, by extension, likely to grant the anxious outgoing military leadership blanket pardons for their "Dirty War
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
." The argument resonated among voters, giving UCR nominee Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Alfonsín
Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín was an Argentine lawyer, politician and statesman, who served as the President of Argentina from December 10, 1983, to July 8, 1989. Alfonsín was the first democratically-elected president of Argentina following the military government known as the National Reorganization...
an ample victory (the UCR's first against a Peronist candidate).
Following promises to the contrary, Alfonsín turned to increasingly conservative policies in the face of an inherited financial crisis and massive inflation (the world's highest, at the time). Miguel, who led a decimated UOM with a membership (150,000) less than half of its 1970s level, became increasingly marginal to the national discourse; by 1990, he was relegated to helping mediate conflicts between Ubaldini and Alfonsín's successor, President Carlos Menem
Carlos Menem
Carlos Saúl Menem is an Argentine politician who was President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999. He is currently an Argentine National Senator for La Rioja Province.-Early life:...
. Menem, a lifelong Peronist who had been nominated partly with Miguel's last-minute support, quickly took to privatizing Argentina's array of State enterprises, a surprise move opposed by the CGT for the many layoffs it caused. The now compliant Miguel was compelled to call off a strike even after Menem's 1991 sell-off of SOMISA, then Argentina's largest steelmaker, and to support Menem's 1995 reelection bid. Following a decade of Argentina's first (and only) anti-labor Peronist administration, an ally of Miguel's, Buenos Aires Province
Buenos Aires Province
The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...
Governor Eduardo Duhalde
Eduardo Duhalde
-External links:...
was soundly defeated in the 1999 presidential election.
Suffering from a worsening kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
ailment, Miguel considered giving his support to San Luis
San Luis Province
San Luis is a province of Argentina located near the geographical center of the country . Neighboring provinces are, from the north clockwise, La Rioja, Córdoba, La Pampa, Mendoza and San Juan.-History:...
Governor Adolfo Rodríguez Saá
Adolfo Rodríguez Saá
Adolfo Rodríguez Saá Páez Montero is an Argentine Peronist politician. He was the governor of the province of San Luis during several terms, and briefly served as President of Argentina.-Biography:...
's (unsuccessful) candidacy for President; but died in a Buenos Aires clinic at the end of 2002. He was 75.