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NEWS & LETTERS, January-February 2004Our Life and Times by Kevin A. BarryArgentina factoriesTwo years after the economy collapsed, 170 factories employing 10,000 workers remain under worker occupation. These "recoveries” [RECUPERADAS] are very popular, especially among the working class. Typically, workers have taken over all functions, including management, sometimes with the technical help of one or two more educated specialists, usually left intellectuals. In most cases, all earn the same salary, which is higher than it was under traditional management. In other cases, as at the Chilavert printing company, which now sports a big poster of Che Guevara, police were sent to dislodge the workers. However, they successfully resisted, aided by people from the surrounding neighborhood. At the Ghelco company, workers kicked out 29 managers, whose salaries had accounted for 80% of the firm’s payroll! At first, the workers had difficulty with accounting and commercial law, but today they have the plant up and running and have recovered 40% of its previous market. "Our secret is solidarity,” said Ghelco workers’ representative Norberto Morizon (LE MONDE 12/9/03). At the beginning, they had received help from workers who had taken over the steel mill Union y Fuerza. Now Ghelco is aiding workers at Chilavert printing. The liberal Peronist government of Nestor Kirchner has made a major concession to the working class: the creation of a fund that offers loans to help occupied factories get production going. Clearly, the government is also trying in this way to bring the occupations under its control, just as it and a rival Peronist faction are beginning to fragment and take over the leadership of the "piqueteros” movement of the unemployed. |
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