"On the back of a peón". Social history of the workers of the siderometallurgical La Consolidada, Mexico (1934-1964)

Abstract

The Consolidated Rolling Mills and Foundries Company, better known as La Consolidada S. A., was an iron and steel company founded by Harry Wright in México City. Its industrial life began with two electric furnaces with which it melted steel scrap and with only 400 workers from 1907. During the cardenismo (1934-1940) the Industrial Union of Workers, Miners, Metallurgists and Similars of the Mexican Republic was born. (SITMMSRM), one of the most combative industrial unions. The workers of La Consolidada S.A., who formed section 97 SITMMSRM, were protagonists in many protest movements or in support of the sister sections of the union to obtain better salaries and better working conditions. Their actions were considered radical, and the Mexican State tried to subjugate the union through section 97. However, before the attack of the State, they achieved the best social benefits of the period, a time that remained in the memory of their workers and in the iconographic memories bequeathed to their families.