Instituições sociais e a resolução do problema da ação coletiva: um estudo das associações trabalhistas de Belo Horizonte no início do século XX

Abstract

The present study was guided by the research, based in institutional approach, of the practices of militance and the demands adopted by the working class from Belo Horizonte, in the context of the building of the new capital city of Minas Gerais (1893- 1930), that were intended to consolidate the labour rights or even to militate for better work and life conditions. The general aim was to provide a Sociohistorical analysis of the labour movement of Belo Horizonte in the beginning of the twentieth century. The issues that guide this research were: a) what was the nature of the labouring organizations, if they were simple negotiation tools to serve to conflicts of interests or if they had already worked as social institutions and b) how they managed to solve the problem related to the collective action among the workers from Belo Horizonte? For this purpose, the following class associations were analysed: Associação Beneficente Tipográfica, Liga Operária (1900), Centro Operário (1903), Confederação Auxiliadora do Estado de Minas Gerais (1905), Centro Confederativo do Estado de Minas Gerais (1907), Federação do Trabalho do Estado de Minas Gerais (1909) and Confederação Católica do Trabalho (1919). It was observed that the institutional model of the associations have provided ways by which the actions of the workers have become almost standardized, following ways that enable them to solve the problem of the collective actions