Abstract
This article examines the characteristics of the system of food rations and fixed-prices established by U.S-owned Anaconda Copper Company and its subsidiaries in Chile. Between 1932 and 1958, Anaconda's subsidiaries maintained a generous system of fixed prices that guaranteed workers’ access to inexpensive food in a context of rising inflation. In addition to economic reasons, the fixed prices were part of a larger system of social and labor benefits. Thus, influenced by ideas of Welfare Capitalism, Anaconda also used this benefit as a way to influence the labor force and maintained a certain level of labor stability. In the long run, the contradictions and shortcomings of the company stores (Pulperías) led to countless labor and social conflicts in the copper camps, and the local labor unions exerted enormous pressures to improve and expand the benefits. By 1958, the system had become too expensive and unpractical, and the company and the unions agreed to replace it by an economic compensation paid directly in cash to the workers.
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