After the revolutionary period of 1910-1920, Mexico developed a number
of social protection programs to support workers in public and private
sectors and to establish safeguards for the poor and the aged. These
included pensions, healthcare, and worker's compensation. The new
welfare programs were the product of a complex interrelationship of
corporate, labor, and political actors. In this unique dynamic,
cross-class coalitions maintained both an authoritarian regime and
social protection system for some seventy years, despite the ebb and
flow of political and economic tides.
By focusing on organized labor, and its powerful role in effecting
institutional change, Workers and Welfare chronicles the development
and evolution of Mexican social insurance institutions in the twentieth
century. Beginning with the antecedents of social insurance and the
adoption of pension programs for central government workers in 1925,
Dion's analysis shows how the labor movement, up until the 1990s, was
instrumental in expanding welfare programs, but has since become largely
ineffective. Despite stepped-up efforts, labor has seen the retrenchment
of many benefits. Meanwhile, Dion cites the debt crisis, neoliberal
reform, and resulting changes in the labor market as all contributing to
a rise in poverty. Today, Mexican welfare programs emphasize poverty
alleviation, in a marked shift away from social insurance benefits for
the working class.