Complete Thesis_double spaced abstract.pdf

In 1945 under President Arévalo the Vagrancy Laws were eliminated. Peasants were no
longer forced to work a certain number of days on the coffee plantations and no longer were they
required to work for weeks or months on state projects without compensation. However, the
reality in Guatemala was that agriculture still provided nearly 70% of all laborers with
employment; an even higher percentage in the rural departments. Peasant laborers living in rural
areas had few if any other choices for employment other than the seasonal harvest of coffee,
cotton, sugar, and bananas. The majority of existing infrastructure was built for and designed
around the movement of people and goods to and from the large plantations and the urban areas.
Unsurprisingly, even with the vagrancy laws abolished (1945) and agrarian reforms attempted
(1952) a substantial portion of laborers migrated seasonally for employment
The ability of workers to organize and strike was met with gains and losses as workers
flexed their newfound civil and political freedoms. Wages rose in the urban and rural sectors and
organized labor frequently took large corporations to court to enforce new labor legislation.
Although workers were prevailing in the judicial system, the largest employer in Guatemala,
United Fruit Company, responded to strikes and demands for higher wages by firing thousands of
workers. This type of push-pull between economic gains and losses were the norm after the
revolution; additionally, economic gains were often unevenly distributed among the population.
The middleclass workers and students, the most vocal supporters of the revolution, gained the
most after the revolution. Increases in the minimum wage, equal pay for equal work, right to
organize and strike, access to education, and electoral rights were the most widespread. There
were several important economic changes that affected women and indigenous Mayans including
full citizenship, access to social welfare benefits, and agrarian reform; yet, Mayans were relegated
to the fringes of the economic structures even under the revolutionary governments.
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