From Social Uprising to Neoliberal Backlash in Chile

Chile has been heralded for decades as one of the most democratic and stable countries in Latin America. Yet over the past seven years, it has undergone remarkable transitions: a massive social uprising, two constitutional reform processes (one put forward by the left, the other by the right), and two presidential elections, one electing socialist Gabriel Boric and the most recent electing the far-right José Antonio Kast. How do we make sense of these wild pendulum shifts over the course of such a short time?

As Juan Vergara, the lawyer for one of Chile’s Walmart worker unions, has suggested, “workers are angry and fed up. They want change. They want change now. They want change without sacrifice.” The initial response to this anger and sense of urgency for change started in 2006 with high school student strikes, followed in 2011-2014 with massive college student strikes, labor strikes, and significant social movement activity, particularly feminist, indigenous, and environmental movements. These represent the scaffolding that eventually led to the 2019 uprising (see chart on page tk). However, much of that movement energy was then filtered into the largely bureaucratic processes of constitutional reform and elections. For the majority of Chileans who have been suffering the long effects of neoliberal policy, these events were unsatisfactory. This disillusionment is at least partially responsible for the dramatic swings from left to right.

The 2019 uprising was the largest mass mobilization of Chileans since the anti-dictatorship movement responsible for toppling Augusto Pinochet in 1989. The uprising, which ignited after a thirty-peso increase to the subway fare, quickly spread across the country, with rising frustrations about the neoliberal order that the dictatorship had imposed and that the various governments in the transition to democracy had essentially maintained. These included the privatization of education, pensions, and health care. Furthermore, the Pinochet-era labor law reform had all but dismantled unions, making it difficult for workers to organize effectively.

As a result of these deep inequalities, the rallying cry of the uprising quickly became, “no son 30 pesos, son 30 años” (“It’s not 30 pesos, it’s 30 years”). The uprising and its severe repression created a legitimacy crisis for then-President Sebastián Piñera, which resulted in a negotiated “peace” agreement between different political parties in November 2019 to hold a plebiscite which would determine whether the Pinochet-era constitution would be revamped and the process for the revision.

The Covid pandemic interfered with the original date for the plebiscite, but in October 2020, 78 percent of Chileans voted for a new constitution, determined through a constitutional assembly with delegates popularly elected. Surprisingly, most elected delegates were independents unaffiliated with Chile’s political parties. Many came from social movements, though very few came from the labor movement.

A year later, in the middle of the constitutional reform process, Chile held its presidential election. In a shock to many, the right-wing candidate José Antonio Kast won the first round of the election, but since none of the candidates reached 50 percent of the vote, the runoff was scheduled for December 2021. In the second round, Gabriel Boric won the election decisively (56-44 percent). While this was seen as a mandate, the first-round election was a sign of what was to come. Six months after Boric took office, Chileans voted against what has been called the most progressive constitution in the world, with 62 percent of voters rejecting it.1

The rejection created further instability and turmoil for the new Boric government. Right-wing political parties captured the moment and initiated a new constitutional process in December 2022. The drafting body of this process was decidedly conservative, with far-right parties capturing the majority of delegate seats. In the end, the draft of the second new constitution moved even further to the right than the Pinochet-era constitution. It, too, was rejected, with 56 percent of Chileans voting against it in December 2023.

Finally, Chile held its presidential election in November 2025. Term limits specified in the constitution made Gabriel Boric ineligible to run for a consecutive term. Leading candidates included Jeanette Jara (Communist Party), José Antonio Kast (Republican Party), and Franco Parisi (Party of the People). Jara won 26 percent of the first-round vote, but did not secure the 50 percent required to avoid a runoff. The December runoff went to Kast, who received 58 percent of the vote.

Gabriel Boric’s government took office in March 2022 in a highly volatile political context shaped by the aftermath of the 2019 social uprising and the ongoing constitutional process. At the time, the possibility of a new constitution—widely expected to be approved in the September 2022 plebiscite—structured both political expectations and governmental strategy. The administration assumed that many of its most ambitious reforms would be facilitated, or even enabled, by a new constitutional framework. This anticipation not only shaped the sequencing of reforms but also contributed to a broader postponement of key policy initiatives, under the assumption that institutional change was imminent.

The assumption that the new constitution would win in the plebiscite was a significant and costly tactical and strategic error. Social movement actors, the labor movement, and the Boric administration were overconfident in their assumptions of how a million people in the streets would automatically translate into support for political change—the classic error of substituting mobilizing for organizing. What we understand in hindsight is that a loose network of social movements, essentially no participation from political parties, and a lack of ongoing industrial action and organizing by the labor movement made it nearly impossible to move the country from protest action to the bureaucratic processes of constitutional reform and electoral politics. It is one thing to consistently mobilize for mass protest among people who are fed up and angry. It is an entirely different thing to educate people about the political project they will be required to vote on, and then organize them to vote.

In the post-uprising moment, the left was caught flat-footed. Many believed that the massive uprising was sufficient proof that the new constitution would pass and therefore did not organize sufficiently to counter the vicious right-wing attack which included millions of pesos spent on social media misinformation campaigns, in addition to constant fearmongering in the more traditional television and print media.2 At the same time, the left was divided about the constitutional reform process altogether. Some felt that the move toward a bureaucratic constitutional reform process was not radical enough to organize around. Others, including many in the labor movement, did not see themselves sufficiently represented in the proposed constitution.

The loss of the constitutional reform vote dramatically impacted the Boric government, reducing its ability to fulfill its political projects inside and outside of the new proposed constitution. From the outset, the Boric administration advanced an ambitious reform agenda that sought to respond directly to the demands articulated during the uprising. Its program included proposals to increase taxes on the wealthiest sectors, dismantle the private pension system dominated by private pension conglomerates, cancel student debt associated with state-backed loans, and construct a universal public health system to gradually displace private insurers. It also committed to implementing a national water security policy, repealing the controversial Fisheries Law (which granted highly valuable, long-term fishing rights to a small group of large industrial fishing companies), and advancing an expansive human rights agenda that included reparations for victims of state violence during the protests and the comprehensive reform of police institutions to align them with international human rights standards. Taken together, these proposals reflected an effort to move beyond the policy framework inherited from the dictatorship and maintained during the post-transition period.

However, the gap between ambition and implementation quickly became evident. The governing coalition led by the Broad Front and the Communist Party, called Apruebo Dignidad (Approve Dignity), lacked a parliamentary majority, which forced it to broaden its base by incorporating more moderate center-left parties such as the Socialist Party, grouped under Democratic Socialism. This coalition expansion, while necessary for governance, diluted the coherence and transformative scope of the original program. At the same time, the government’s strategic decision to delay major reforms until after the constitutional plebiscite—combined with the unexpected rejection of the proposed constitution in September 2022—significantly weakened its political momentum. In practice, these constraints resulted in a pattern of partial or stalled reforms, revealing both limited state capacity and, at times, a lack of sustained political will to push forward structural change under adverse conditions.

In the realm of labor policy, the Boric administration presented a mixed record that helps illuminate both its political constraints and its broader strategic limitations. On the one hand, the government achieved significant progress in expanding individual labor rights. Most notably, it successfully reduced the standard workweek from forty-five to forty hours—one of the most important labor reforms in recent years. This reform, alongside substantial increases in the minimum wage (which rose from 350,000 pesos per month [US$392] in 2022 to over 530,000 pesos [US$595]) by early 2026, marked tangible improvements in workers’ material conditions. Similarly, the law to secure the effective payment of child support was a very important win for working mothers, since the non-payment of child support is often associated with increased debt and working hours, and loss of economic autonomy. The new law ensures that the cost of raising a child does not fall exclusively on their shoulders.

Additional initiatives, such as legislation addressing workplace harassment and work-life balance, further reinforced this focus on individual protections. These achievements are particularly noteworthy given the government’s minority position in Congress, which forced it to negotiate and moderate key aspects of its proposals to secure broad political support. At the same time, however, this emphasis on politically feasible reforms echoed a broader pattern in the government’s agenda: prioritizing incremental gains in areas of lower political resistance while postponing more structurally transformative changes.

On the other hand, these advances were not matched by comparable efforts to strengthen collective labor rights. Despite longstanding demands from unions and the centrality of these issues in Boric’s original program—which explicitly included the promotion of sectoral bargaining, stronger strike rights, and even forms of worker participation in firm-level decision-making—the government largely failed to advance structural reforms aimed at revitalizing organized labor. Union leaders, particularly within the Chilean union federation, the Workers’ United Center of Chile (CUT in its Spanish acronym), were quick to point out this gap. While initially supportive of the administration, they increasingly criticized what they perceived as a lack of political will to move forward on core elements of the labor agenda. Even taking into account the government’s minority status, union leaders questioned the executive’s failure to introduce, during its first years in office, legislation aimed at dismantling the 1979 Labor Plan and establishing a system of multilevel collective bargaining.3 Although such a reform was eventually introduced in early 2026, its timing rendered it largely symbolic.

Another example of the same problem is the 2025 pension reform. The Boric government recognized citizens’ demands to end the private management of pension funds, a system inherited from the dictatorship. But in order to pass the reform through Congress, it had to maintain the core model, which is based on individual savings. What was won was better regulation of pension funds and a cap on the profit margin. While this reform benefited retirees, it did not advance the movement to eliminate the private management of pensions and was seen as insufficient and contradictory by movement actors. Similar disillusionment occurred with police reform (an important topic given the role of the police in repression, abuse, and criminal assault during the 2019 uprising) as well as the reforms to more significantly penalize law-breaking companies with regard to labor law enforcement.

This gap between expectations and outcomes fueled growing tensions between the government and the labor movement and helps explain the resurgence of union mobilization during Boric’s presidency. In January 2024, during its XIII National Congress, the CUT called for a national general strike, which took place on April 11 of that year. According to union estimates, the mobilization brought together tens of thousands of participants across the country.4 This strike was significant not only because of its scale, but also because it marked a shift in the CUT’s political orientation toward greater autonomy from the government. Unlike during the Concertácion years of 1990-2010, when the CUT rarely resorted to national strikes, the 2024 mobilization signaled a willingness to openly confront an allied government to push for unmet demands. It also demonstrated the union’s capacity to articulate broader societal demands, as the strike was preceded by extensive coordination with grassroots unions, student organizations, neighborhood groups, and even small business associations, culminating in a shared “Social Manifesto.”5

Beyond specific policy disagreements, union leaders also voiced deeper criticisms regarding the government’s limited efforts to incorporate organized labor into policymaking processes. As documented in interviews and public statements, CUT leaders repeatedly complained about the executive’s lack of openness to union participation and dialogue.6 These critiques pointed not only to delays in key reforms, but also to patterns of exclusion in policy design. For example, union representatives noted that in discussions surrounding work-family balance policies, government officials appeared more willing to engage with professional middle-class constituencies than with unions representing more precarious workers. More broadly, labor leaders contrasted this limited engagement with what they perceived as greater access granted to business actors.

Taken together, these dynamics reflect a deeper and more persistent feature of left politics in Chile, namely the weak and often instrumental relationship between political parties and social organizations. Rather than fostering sustained, programmatic alliances with the labor movement, parties within the governing coalition frequently engaged unions in a more episodic and instrumental manner, particularly during electoral cycles or moments of political crisis. In the case of the Boric administration, this translated into a failure to rebuild strong, institutionalized linkages with organized labor, even as unions remained one of the few actors willing to mobilize in support of structural reform.

As a result, even modest attempts by unions to pressure the government, such as the national strikes organized by the CUT in 2024 and 2025, yielded limited results. In this sense, the Boric administration not only reproduced a familiar trajectory in Chilean center-left governments—advancing individual labor protections while leaving intact the institutional foundations that constrain collective worker organization—but also exposed the enduring limits of a political strategy that does not fully integrate social movements as active partners in the reform process.

Kast’s electoral victory not only marks the end of Boric’s term, but also offers a fundamental lesson. If the left wants to exit from the pendulum swing of uprising, institutional hope, frustration, and the re-establishment of right-wing politics, it must rebuild power and organization where neoliberal policies have caused the most damage: in the workplace, in unions, and in life sustaining social services.

The new right-wing government has demonstrated that its project is not only about dismantling the state, but also about restoring the confidence of corporations by disciplining labor, narrowing social rights, and putting a brake on reforms capable of altering the power imbalance between labor and capital, such as sectoral collective bargaining. This orientation became clear almost immediately after José Antonio Kast took office in March 2026, where like Donald Trump, he has governed by executive decree to demonstrate speed of action and eliminate having to bargain with different political parties.

One of the administration’s first labor-related decisions was to withdraw the bill introduced by the previous government to establish multilevel bargaining, a process by which unions can bargain sectorally at different levels. For example, the mine workers federation can set a standard wage, but a local union can negotiate different wage rates for specific specializations. This reform was long demanded by unions as a mechanism to dismantle the labor relations framework inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship.7 The new administration also adopted a much more restrictive stance toward minimum wage negotiations, reinforcing the perception that the Kast administration sought to restore a more openly pro-business labor regime. In this sense, Chile mirrors broader regional trends under far-right governments such as Javier Milei in Argentina, where neoliberal restructuring and the weakening of labor protections have been central political objectives.

However, in less than three months, the Kast government has undermined itself and lost considerable electoral support. First, he passed an increase in the cost of fuel, which directly impacted consumers and led to the first protests against his regime. Next, he announced budget cuts, particularly in public health which already runs on a deficit, while lowering taxes for the wealthiest Chileans. Third, he either backtracked on or was unable to fulfill two of his most important campaign promises that helped him win the election: the promise to deport undocumented immigrants from Chile, which he then suggested was just a metaphor for needing to fix the immigration system, and his pledge to reduce crime. He then revealed that his government did not have a security plan and would be using the plan developed by the Boric administration, while firing the security and press ministers. Finally, his first public address on June 1, 2026, had very little content, but he announced that his government would withhold basic social benefits against vandals (a category that includes those who assault police officers or engage in “incivilities”). This punishment is directed at the most vulnerable working-class sectors of Chilean society.

This offensive can help clarify the terrain where workers can and should act. The work ahead is not nostalgia for what was lost, or passively waiting for the next electoral cycle, but rather the building of a strong working-class movement—a movement that is capable of coordinating industrial action, even when there is no sectoral bargaining; building alliances between unions and social movements; and developing anti-racist solidarity to confront a politics of fear. We need campaigns that connect wages, pensions, childcare, housing, health care, and public safety as fundamental to working-class life.

Time and again, Chilean workers have demonstrated their capacity to mobilize. The challenge now is to turn that mobilization into organization, that organization into strategy, and that strategy into the collective strength necessary to confront the far right and reopen the possibility of structural transformation.