The empresas recuperadas is a beautiful story that travelled to me from southern hemisphere in 2004, and ever since it has fascinated me, passionated me, filled with joy and pride .
My wish is with these clumsy lines to let some people more know about this impressive adventure.
I discovered this argentinian miracle when the documentary “The Take” by N. Klein and A Lewis was distributed in Paris
The documentary brought us the stories of these men and women who resuscitated the factories left and abandoned by their owners at the time of the Argentina
Even before the bankrupt, factories and business owners had adopted massive firing policies, permitted by the extreme liberalization of workforce regulation, and when the economic crisis was drawing close to its maximum, many factories had been abandoned and shutted down from one day to the other.
Then, where the international economy organization had deserted the quest, workers came in and brought back to life the argentina
Not for an income or speculation, to gain back their identity.
The principles that moved them were very simple: the workers, who had been dismissed, at one point could not cope anymore with not having a job or even a reason to get up in the morning, and rather than waiting, or in the worst scenario becoming “cartoneros” decided to face their destiny and recovered back their former working place.
It was just saying: I know this job and I do not want to depend on others, not to be part of this society so why not going back and doing what I know how to do ?
Simple and brave. Pan Paz y trabajo
Simple and brave. Pan Paz y trabajo
The guys met, talked and then went back to their factories : the first objectives were to save the factories from pillages, putting back the machinery to function, protect the premises and then organize themselves to let the machines run and produce again.
I imagine that every day and every night must have been a struggle, patrolling the premises to avoid stealth, keeping inside enough courage to keep going until the end.
After the first “takes”, organizations sprung up and helped the workers sharing experiences and legal , organization advice.
Then more and more factories re-opened up again.
The workers learnt to share the different chores, even to provide inside the factories health assistance.
And then the legal battles were just starting: who owned these functioning factories now?
The workers could claim several weeks and months of unpaid wages, in our society we accept that if we do not pay our debts the bank or the lender will come and claim our goods, furniture and so on.
But what about the other way round, do we accept that if an employer does not pay his dues to his workforce, the workforce is entitled to claim something back for themselves? To me it is quite simple that law should be the same in the two examples but I think that most people would be shocked by this.
The legal and economic grounds are beyond my reach.
Without entering any philosophical discussion, in 2004 when I watched “The Take” and talked and talked about it to my friends (we were in the full wake of global and no global), everybody was mild and answered timidly that in fact this experiment was maybe working but it could not be taken as an example for a different society: it relied too much on the good will of involved people, then it could not work for much longer.
Well there we go in 2010 I went to Buenos Aires
I was looking for the courage and the integrity of the workers leading this struggle.
I started to picture in my mind the anxiety and unrest of the people left without work, I can imagine them meeting up in the night , maybe in bars with the same hat old men used to wear, I pictured their worried looks and the anxious questions whispered at dusk about how to keep a family, what the future had in store for them.
When I went to Argentina in March 2010, I entered in contact with La Base, an association that support the empresas and thanks to the help of Esteban Magnani I could visit some of the most recent recovered factories.
The first factory I visited, was the cooperative Esperanza del Plata , a discrete and humble polyethylene bags factory in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The recovery of the factory had taken place three years before.
Today the business goes and grows on quite well, thanks to the fact that polyethylene bags are quite a popular merchandise.
One cannot help notice the pride in the people involved. And also the happiness now that they have a work again , to have recovered their dignity again.
Most of the workers are middle aged, the youngest ones had usually better perspectives of finding again a job when the factory closed down and are less willing to take on the risks of an occupation.
I went to visit with some people from the Base, the association was helping with financial assistance and follow up the development in the factories.
Most of the workers do not have any marketing, procurement, finance or legal background so they have to learn it all on the spot.
It was sad and somehow obvious to see the previous management offices, everything had been left careless as it was as if the management had to flee on the spot.
The workers remembered the earlier manager, replaced by his own daughter later: the manager and owner used to come through the production machines and ask around about the workers. El ingeniero was called by the machine operators. There is a lot of respect still towards the "ingeniero", the workers appreciated that he was looking after the factory not just filling papers. His daughter apparently never used to come throught the working rooms. She did not seem to care in their eyes. Surely , this attitude is shared by several managers nowadays, maybe inevitably it represents the new way of being a manager where you do not really need to know what is going on behind in those noisy rooms.
Huesitos was the second factory I visited on that day: Huesitos deals with a pretty peculiar business producing the small toy bones for dogs.
In Marcelo’s eyes you can see the same pride found in so many other factories. There is also a glitter of hope, of (re-gained ?) trust in the future.
However, Huesitos is not sailing in calm waters: the business of dog toys is not the most prosperous one. Huesitos are produced from cow skins and are prone to the up and downs of the raw matter availability. Since cow skins are also exported to neighboring countries , namely Brazil
Waiting for better times the Huesitos factory from time to time seek help from family members that join the production line.
It came to my mind how difficult is to compete for these people with the market rules. They do not have the state of the art machinery as long as they do not have any sales dept, any marketing etc.
On the other hand, I indulge myself in thinking that all these machineries which are not the best ones out there but are still able to produce goods , are kept alive rather than being replaced with more modern items; in a way the empresas recuperadas absolve a function of recycling and reusing rather than ditching what is not the last cry anymore. A kind of more sustainable way of producing, even though it comes not as the result of an economic policy but rather as a matter of fact state.
Crystal Lux is a massive factory in Avellaneda in the outskirts of Buenos Aires
The business is thriving, and the cooperative is starting to buy new machines to replace the old ones, so it well above bare survival and moving into expansion.
In the early occupation times, the workers had to patrol to avoid people breaking in, today it is hard to imagine these places empty and at the mercy of thieves .
Ruben who shows me around , tells me how the new personnel is hired and taught through the job by the more experienced personnel. The local youth has then a possibility to get and learn a job from the cooperative in a sort of enlargened family spirit, without going through the standard hiring process, and this has quite a positive impact in maintaining the social tissue healthy .
The decision concerning the empresas recuperadas are taken in a general assembly , where all the associates take part and vote.
When I look at the size of Crystal Lux, I am dazzled at thinking that all these people can decide in assembly and manage to take the good decisions to run the business. Ruben is positive about the fact that since every worker is aware of being responsible for the future of the company is a boost for the production quality and smoothness.
Grissinopoli produces grissini : from northern Italy up to Buenos Aires
Grissinopoli has been also the object of a difficult occupation. Now the resulting cooperative brings the name of “La nuova esperanza” , the new hope (very catchy !).
There are several forms of cooperatives: some of them allow all the workers to become associates. In Grissinopoli only the former participants to the cooperative, are associates and additional personnel is taken on seasonal basis.
When I began this travel, I was thrilled by the fact that a society could work, produce, create wealth and prosperity without the need for a chief to tell what to do.
The fact of shaping one’s future is a concept that brings hope and also scares.
Then there was all the admiration for these people fighting so hard to get back their job, fighting hard against the idea of being a burden to a society and to gain back their dignity.
Then there was all the admiration for these people fighting so hard to get back their job, fighting hard against the idea of being a burden to a society and to gain back their dignity.
The work is the element which makes one individual part of a society, it is also the product of the will and soul of the workers and it cannot be traded or cut as any other goods.
Pictures and text by Tania Simonetti
January 2011 (Pictures done in March 2010)
References and links:
Esteban Magnani “El cambio silencioso, Recovered Business in Argentina” , http://www.estebanmagnani.com.ar/
Roberto Rizza & Jacopo Sermasi “Il lavoro Recuperato, Imprese e Autogestione in Argentina”
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