"Multinational Corporations’ Dictatorships, and Labor Unionism"

During the 1960s and 1970s, several democratically elected regimes were overthrown and replaced by dictatorial ones in Latin America. It is well-known that the overthrown regimes had a strong relationship with labor unionism and that this alliance clashed with the interests of multinational corporations and their home countries. This paper considers the element of technological change as one playing a role in increasing the tensions between the democratically elected government, labor unions, and multinational corporations, shifting the focus away from natural resource-oriented multinationals to manufacturing ones. In the process of modernization, manufacturing multinationals required technological changes that meant mass layoffs. A domestic elite eager to modernize their economies through found in labor unionism and democracy an obstacle for their agenda, leading them to promote military coups supported by foreign firms.