Introduction

As Michael Burawoy said: “The production of things is simultaneously not only the production and reproduction of social relations but also the production of an experience of those relations” (Burawoy, 1979: 16). Each production process and all its characteristics, as a distinct form of consumption of the working force, will impact that experience creating specific forms of identity -both collective and individual- among the workers.

In steel factories, the experience of a dangerous production process becomes a key element in the building of the workers´ subjectivity. Different elements such as heat, toxic gases, heavy machinery and pieces, create a physical understanding of work. 

In this sense, if work is what turns us into humans, how this physical experience of work affected the self-constitution of those workers? 

Establecimientos Metalúrgicos Santa Rosa was the third biggest steel factory in Argentina between 1960 and 1981. The analysis of its production process will help us understand the construction of its worker's identity.