Trade unions in Ecuador

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (May 2010)

Disunited and poorly organized for most of its history, trade unions in Ecuador developed only slowly and had only a marginal political impact. Precise figures on

Professional or employee associations (cámaras), composed of middle-class, white-collar workers, constituted about 25 percent of all trade unions. Representing the dominant economic groups in the country, these associations exercised a predominant influence on economic policy; their representatives frequently held cabinet posts and other top government positions dealing with economics. The support of the associations proved crucial to most governments.[1]

History

Although union organizations began forming in Ecuador early in the twentieth century, organized workers did not begin to acquire any influence until the late 1930s. Key events in Ecuador's labor history took place in 1938 with the promulgation of the Labor Code and the founding of the first labor confederation, the

Through militant activities, such as petitions, collective conflicts, and general strikes, the CTE—composed predominantly of industrial workers and led by members of the communist and socialist parties—emerged as the principal labor organization in Ecuador in the late 1970s. Although the CTE had become the largest of the three national confederations by the 1970s, its hegemony declined in the 1980s as a result of the growth of rival confederations, internal conflicts and splits, and governmental repression. In 1987 only a shadow remained of its peasant federation, the Ecuadorian Indian Federation (Federación Ecuatoriana de Indios, FEI). The CTE still included a number of industrial unions and various public-sector unions, and was organizing autonomous workers. It encompassed an estimated 55,000 members in 200 affiliated unions.^[1]

The