Description
Research on worker power has highlighted that even well-organised workers cannot come up against political economy constraints such as global economic dependency. This paper investigates the limits that a neoliberalised welfare state imposes on labour power – even where workers have withstood the neoliberal trend toward labour precariousness and de-unionisation. I focus on Colombia’s most powerful trade union – the Colombian Federation of Educators (FECODE) – and their struggle to access good health services in a neoliberalised welfare economy. Despite a high degree of organisation and mobilisation, close ties to the country’s first post-neoliberal government, and a ‘special health care regime’ with exceptional funding, FECODE and its federations have failed to improve healthcare access for an ageing workforce of teachers exposed to enormous physical and mental health risks. An attempt by FECODE and the progressive government elected in 2022 to reform the health regime for teachers failed to secure cooperation from (private) health providers and municipalities. Health access diminished instead of improving. The crisis of the teachers’ health regime is widely mediatised as emblematic of the country’s wider health system crisis. The analysis draws on document analysis and interviews and focus groups conducted in 2024 and 2025. It highlights the dilemmas faced by trade unionists challenging policy failures under ‘their’ first progressivist government and relying on precarious healthcare workers to secure services for teachers. More generally, it underscores the importance of care economies such as health and education for current labour struggles.
