ICS Working Papers Nº2/2016

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ICS WORKING PAPERS 2016
nonetheless a severe blow to NS attempts to establish a distinct identity while allowing some
of its leaders to join the regime.
Once the ETN was established and the appropriate control mechanisms created, the
organization of labour was undertaken. The government gave the unions two months either
to accept the new system or to disband. Substantially weakened after the 1926 coup, the
unions accepted the new legislation, albeit by only a slight majority. The most important
unions were simply dissolved when they rejected the legislation. In January 1934 a strike took
place to protest the so-called ‘fascistization’ of the remaining unions; these were then
recreated from the top down by officials from within the corporatist apparatus, although
many remained based on the previous unions.
The new unions were controlled by the National Institute of Labour and Welfare (INTP –
Instituto Nacional do Trabalho e Previdência). Their governing statutes and prospective
leaders were submitted to state approval. If they diverged from the ETN, they were
summarily dissolved. Even members’ dues came under official scrutiny. In order to keep them
weak and ineffective, national representation was not permitted. The rural world was
represented by the casas do povo (community centres). The regime did not recognize social
differences in a rural society overseen by ‘associate protectors’, actually latifundistas. The old
rural unions were abolished, particularly in the latifundia-dominated south. To ensure the
working classes were culturally provided for, the National Foundation for Happiness at Work
(FNAT – Federação Nacional de Alegria no Trabalho) was created.
The importance of the corporatist system becomes clearer when examining state economic
intervention from 1930 onwards. The pre-corporatist institutions that could ensure smooth
relations between the state and the emerging corporatist institutions, such as the
organizations of economic co-ordination, were maintained. According to official rhetoric, they
were to disappear gradually over time as the corporatist edifice neared completion. In
practice, however, they became central features of the regime, gaining total control over the
grémios (guilds) in the agricultural sector, the weaker industrial areas and the agro-food
export sector The integration of the old employers’ associations into the new corporatist
system was asymmetrical, especially when compared with labour. Decrees governing the
grémios sought to reorganize employers and the liberal professions, but in a more moderate
and prudent fashion. The employers’ associations remained tentatively active. Although
supposedly ‘transitional’, some of them lasted as long as the regime itself.
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