The government of Michele Bachelet, Chile's first female head of state, has registered more labor dissent and popular discord than any of the post-Pinochet presidents who preceded her.
As the country passed from dictatorship to democracy, workers' rights were often sublimated to fears of upsetting foreign investors and suppressing the all-important exports.
But today, workers not only want concessions on salaries and working conditions, but they and their supporters also are starting to question the country's freewheeling free enterprise.
Tensions are rising between Socialist President Bachelet and her once tried-and-true allies on the left.
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