This article uses the 1931 strike by the Lima bakery workers' union as an optic through which to study the politicisation of industrial relations in the context of the emergence of populist politics in Peru. Faced with a loss of control over the bakery workforce and a hostile and ineffective system of collective bargaining, the union turned to an alternative strategy in its attempts to gain control over the workforce and the productive process. It presented itself as a bulwark against labour militancy and sought to establish political ties to the Sánchez Cerro government. Although the strategy was largely unsuccessful, this case study illustrates the extent to which Peruvian workers played an active role in the construction of populist politics in the 1930s.