The social foundations of structural power: strategic position, worker unity and external alliances in the making of the Chilean dockworker movement

This article examines the associational and societal foundations of structural power. A case study of the ten-year-long history of the Unión Portuaria de Chile is analysed with a focus on a critical juncture in 2012–2014. The Chilean dockworker case is an emblematic example of trade union movement revitalisation via strikes of strategically positioned workers. Yet ethnographic research with the organisation suggests that the role it has come to play in the country was only possible as a result of intensive long-term organising efforts to develop a high degree of internal unity at multiple scales, as well as sustained alliances with external actors. As a result, the authors argue that the most economistic accounts of worker power and trade union movement revitalisation are analytically insufficient and would benefit from greater attention to associational and societal dimensions of power, even among the most strategically positioned workers.