Barrio obrero

The Swift plant in Rosario, located on the Parana River and Saladillo Stream riverbank, began its operations in 1924, with a 500-ton export of frozen meat to the Bremen-Heave German port. The company employed up to 10,000 workers, with shifts of up to 3,000 workers, who slaughtered a minimum of 2,000 cattle daily.

With the opening of the Swift plant, there was a European immigration wave: Germans, Yugoslavs, Czechs, Armenians, Greeks, Poles, and Lithuanians. The employees settled in nearby lots built by the Sociedad Anonima del Saladillo (a real estate company that bought the land in 1903 from the descendants of Manuel Arijon). As a result, the neighborhood ceased to be only residential, transforming its original appearance, and becoming a working-class neighborhood.
Driven by the harsh working conditions of the factory and in defense of workers' rights, the "Meat Industry Union" was created in 1944. In order to remain close to the plant, the Union was settled in the surrounding area, thus becoming an institutional reference of Saladillo.