Between the management and the workers: the professional practice of the social worker in the Peugeot factory in Berazategui, 1968-1973

Abstract

This paper focuses on the professional practice of the social worker at the Peugeot car factory located in Berazategui (Buenos Aires, Argentina) in the period 1960s-1970s. Social work within the industrial field has a long history in dealing with social problems such as absenteeism, the worker’s family situation, the adaptation to the job position as well as housing problems. Here professional practice is analysed, especially that of Francisco Oscar Toto. At that factory then an ideological dispute was going on about "traditional" forms of intervention under circumstances of growing labour-management conflict together with the political radicalization of professionals.