Trajectories of Workers’ Control under the Economic Crisis

Marina Kabat

The factory takeover movement that erupted in Argentina during the 2001 economic crisis gave rise to important debates. When the crisis that impelled the movement was ameliorated and capitalism seemed to have recovered its equilibrium, there was discussion as to whether it was possible for these factories—run by workers’ councils—to continue to survive under workers’ control, maintaining their socialized characteristics. Some authors considered it quite likely; furthermore, on the basis of these taken factories (fabricas tomadas), they believed it would be possible to construct a social economy that could coexist with the capitalistic economy. Quickly these expectations were contradicted by reality. With the recovery of the Argentinean national economy and the decline of the popular political movement, these worker-controlled factories were subdued by the dynamic of capitalism.

The factories experienced different processes. The workers’ councils had to contend with technical obsolescence, debt, and the obligation to indemnify the former owners of the factories in order to survive capitalistic competition. Many worker-controlled firms couldn’t survive. Others managed to persist but at the price of self-exploitation of the workers, who earned less than salaried employees in capitalistic firms. In some factories there was a return of capital command over production, for example, customers lending money to the firm. Many taken factories did not have the resources to obtain necessary production materials so they agreed to work with materials provided by the customers, who then paid only for labor. Yet the more competitive worker-controlled factories tended to evolve in a different direction. Some of them hired salaried workers, thereby reintroducing capitalistic relations within the factory.

This chapter analyzes the evolution of these two types of recovered factories—those more successful in capitalist terms and those less able to survive economic competition. The research examines the economic and political context in which they developed and focuses on paradigmatic cases such as Brukman, a textile factory in Buenos Aires, and Zanón, a ceramics factory in the south, studying their economic viability, their relationship with the state, and the new forms of work organization they promoted. The methodology is based on statistical analysis, historical research on Argentinean expropriated factories, and the trajectories of workers’ control in changing periods of economic crisis, making use of empirical research, interviews with workers, and ethnographic methods and observations inside the plants.

It is our belief that taken factories and their workers’ councils are one of the greatest accomplishments of the workers’ movement. However, to overlook their limitations and contradictions will not help to preserve them. On the contrary, only an objective study of their characteristics and shortcomings will help remove present obstacles and develop their complete potential for the future.

One of their crippling limitations is the industrial form they must adopt to obtain legal status within capitalism; that is, the form of cooperative organizations. Many taken factories refused this solution, but it was the only option acceptable to the government. The taken factories were not born as cooperatives. On the contrary, they started as workers’ councils; this was the case with the most important taken factories, including Zanón and Brukman. But under economic and political pressure as well as repression, these workers’ councils decided to transform themselves into cooperatives.

There is a political current with close ties to the government that has tried to redirect the taken-factories movement to make it more acceptable in capitalistic terms. This movement has rejected the tactic of occupation (although it too used this tactic at the beginning); it has privileged negotiation agreements and defends the cooperative model as the ultimate solution for workers. Workers orientated to this group usually form a cooperative as the first step. But these are not the cases analyzed here.

From our point of view it is important to distinguish between taken factories—those that have undergone an occupation process, implying direct action—and the rest of the so-called “recovered enterprises.” Though the two groups share some characteristics, they have resulted from dissimilar experiences, with different internal organization and divergent political horizons. Furthermore, workers’ councils play a much more important and active role in taken factories; in the majority of recovered firms councils have little to no presence. Thus the focus of this chapter is on taken factories ; recovered firms are analyzed only for the purposes of comparison.

Political Context of the Factory Takeover Movement

The popular manifestation known as the Argentinazo,¹⁶¹ a working-class insurrection that took place amid the country’s financial collapse of December 19–20, 2001, initiated a revolutionary process in which factory occupation played a prominent role.The factory takeover movement served as a catalyst for the popular mobilization that accompanied the Argentinazo but at the same time was one of its major beneficiaries—it would not have been able to sustain itself without the popular mobilization or the support of the organizations that led the process.

Likewise, the ceramic factory Zanón in the southern province of Neuquen would not have had the chance to resist seven eviction attempts without the aid of several political organizations, especially the unemployed movement.¹⁶² The same happened in the Brukman textile workshop, located in the capital city of Buenos Aires. Brukman workers occupied the factory on December 18, 2001, only two days before the Argentinazo forced the president to resign. The Brukman occupation was supported by both the piquetero³ and the assembly movements. The first eviction attempt took place the same day as the first meeting of all the popular assemblies from different neighborhoods. After the meeting of assemblies, four hundred people marched to the Brukman factory to defend the workers’ occupation. The government organized a huge repressive force to expel the employees from the plant, but not even the manager could enter the factory. A massive and long-lasting encampment at the doors of the factory prevented his entrance and finally obtained expropriation of the firm. In another occupied factory, Grissinopoli, the neighbors installed a siren that could be turned on in the event of an attempt at eviction so they could go to help.

A third example among many concerns the printing plant Artes Gráficas Chilavert. When the workers decided to occupy the factory, taking production into their own hands, police surrounded the plant and tried to disrupt the manufacturing process. But neighbors organized among themselves to convey supplies to the workers through the houses next to the factory. In fact, the first book run manufactured clandestinely by Chilavert under workers’ control was delivered from the factory, in spite of the surrounding police force, through a hole in the wall separating the factory from a neighbor’s house. This neighbor also helped distribute the books and collect resources for the workers.

These examples illustrate that the factory takeover movement was rooted in the larger class struggle. It helped create the clamor from which this movement was born and gave rise to the acts of solidarity and the campaigns that enabled its growth and survival. When this bigger political movement weakened, so did the factory takeover movement. The years between 2002 and 2009 witnessed an apparent retreat in the class struggle in Argentina, as a partial economic recovery and the effects of repression and co-optation resulted in a decline in the level of political activity and mobilization. However, this decline should be considered only relative because class struggle has not receded to the levels before the 2001 crisis and Argentinazo insurrection. The organizations built during this political process have not disappeared; they have even gained new sectors, especially among teachers, subway employees, and factory personnel. With the return of economic crisis from 2008 to 2010, the class struggle has escalated into skilled and professional labor markets that had been regarded as less vulnerable to a decline in wage rates and economic destabilization (for a more detailed description of the Argentinean class struggle see Sartelli 2007).

A parallel experience can be seen in the factory takeover movement: after 2002 there was a relative decline. Some taken factories could not survive in the competitive environment and closed their doors. Some evolved in a capitalistic manner, reintroducing wage labor within the firm. Many were co-opted by the government—in exchange for subsidies they abandoned political confrontation and removed their more radical elements. Others simply reduced their political activities—time for assemblies and political discussion in the workplace is naturally limited, and the number of demonstrations simply diminished. Some new takeovers arose during this period, but their expectations and willingness to face conflict were much lower. As confrontation was reduced, the overall number of occupations dropped markedly. There were 123 enterprises taken over between 2000 and 2004; during 2005–2008 there were only 23 (Palomino et al. 2005).

Nevertheless it can be considered a success that in these adverse conditions many taken factories managed to survive and maintained a degree of political activity, which, in certain cases, such as that of Zanón, remains of particular importance. The recurrence of the economic crisis will likely revitalize the factory takeover movement; as of 2009 new taken factories had appeared, giving rise to a fresh wave of solidarity campaigns. In this context, it is important to heed the lessons of the recent past, lessons that can be useful for workers everywhere, not only in Argentina.

Concentrated in metropolitan areas, the factory takeover movement has been particularly strong in the Buenos Aires province, especially in the districts surrounding the capital. Other provinces leading the process are the industrial centers of Córdoba and Santa Fe; also involved are the provinces of Neuquen, Entre Rios, Chaco, Jujuy, Rio Negro, Mendoza, and Tierra del Fuego.

The movement is mainly consolidated among undercapitalized secondary sector enterprises with few links to international markets. This is a consequence of the process of concentration and centralization of capital and the bankruptcy of many industrial firms. Behind the secondary sector come the service companies. Two examples from this sector are the Hotel Bauen in the center of Buenos Aires and the public transportation company Transportes del Oeste. The list also includes firms related to education and health services as well as commerce. Within the secondary sector, 26 percent of all taken factories are in the metallurgical industries, which include foundries, tube and foundation construction, and automotive parts manufacture. Food processing and preparation represents the next largest group within the secondary sector, comprising 25 percent of total cases. Within the food branch the taken factories are quite heterogeneous, ranging from meat processing plants with nearly five hundred workers, such as Yaguané, to several small enterprises, such as Grissinopoli, a bread products manufacturer, and SASETRU, a pasta manufacturer (Fontenla 2007).

Constraints on Worker-Occupied Factories

Workers who take production into their own hands face several obstacles and constraints. The first consideration is the fact that the vast majority of workers’ occupations take place in plants in which the capitalist firm has already gone bankrupt. According to Argentinean bankruptcy law, the workers that take control of the factory assume all its previous debts, a heavy inheritance for the workers’ councils.

A second constraint relates to the legal form of the expropriation. Initially, the workers forming a cooperative obtain the temporary use of the factory for a period of two years. After that, they are forced to buy the firm from the capitalist. They are allowed to subtract the salaries and benefits owed them by their former employer; however, if the workers are successful in producing a profit, the original firm accrues this value. Consequently, in two years’ time they will have to buy the company at a price much higher than it was when they took charge of the firm. For example, the meat processing plant Yaguané was valued at $3,250,000 in 1997, the year in which the workers took control. In 2004, when the expropriation was obtained, the firm’s value had increased to $38,000,000. This process only applies to situations in which the expropriation is actually obtained, however; this is not the result for the majority of appropriated enterprises. An alternate type of resolution involves the rental of the plant, whether by a legal arrangement or by a direct arrangement with the capitalist owners. In many cases there is either no resolution or a provisional one.

When the creation of a cooperative has been preceded by an occupation process, expropriation has been achieved more frequently. According to research carried out in 2004, most taken factories had obtained an expropriation, while the firms without a takeover action achieved expropriation only in approximately a third of the cases (see Trinchero 2004). These findings are acknowledged even by those who regard conflict and occupation as being somehow negative for the recovery of the factories.

Workers have fought for better arrangements. The cooperative option, especially the expropriation agreement mentioned above, is not the most progressive solution and involves risks. One has already been described: workers must take responsibility for the company’s debts and buy the factory from the capitalist owner who had driven it to bankruptcy in the first place. The debt burden, as well as the obligation to compensate the owner, threatens to financially choke the taken factories. Another risk involves the transformation of a worker’s legal standing once the cooperative is in order. Legal rights of workers do not extend to the associates of a cooperative, and minimum wage, social welfare, and other benefits are lost with the legal confirmation of the cooperative. This is why in the more politically conscious factories the workers have battled for the nationalization of the firm under workers’ control, as well as for expropriation without indemnification.

Nationalization, which has been more frequently achieved in taken factories in Venezuela than in Argentina, allows the workers to preserve their labor rights. The Argentine government was inflexible on this point; the INAES (National Institute of Cooperative Enterprise and Social Economy), a government institution created in 2000, insisted that cooperative organization was the only legal option for taken factories. In order to increase government control over cooperatives, in 2003 INAES announced Resolution #2037, establishing new regulations for cooperatives and increasing its own jurisdiction over them. In this context the workers were forced to accept the cooperative solution as the only way to prevent eviction and to achieve the legal stability necessary for production.

Brukman and Zanón, by all accounts the two most important taken factories, both originally rejected the creation of a cooperative. Repression and lack of economic support from the government finally forced them to accept the cooperative form, although the workers from both factories resisted for almost two years: 2001–2003 at Brukman and 2002–2004 at Zanón. The repression suffered by these workers and the negative results of their requests for nationalization under workers’ control served as a test case and thus had deterrent effects on developments at other taken factories.

The women working in the old Brukman factory organized as a cooperative only following a series of disputes with the state. After the employers of the company abandoned the installations on December 18, 2001, the seamstresses occupied the factory and put the machines to work. In March 2002 they presented a proposal to the legislature of Buenos Aires requesting the nationalization of the firm under workers’ control. The legislature started discussion of the project in July 2002.

The motivation for proposing the “cooperative” model initially was that, as one worker said, if nationalization failed, they “wouldn’t have any salary or social security” (Heller 2005, 195). In early 2003 Brukman workers still defended the nationalization under workers’ control. That year they laid out the following proposal:

For a year and a half we have been proposing the factory statization under worker control. But we aren’t intransigents, as the government says . . . we said that we were open to other legal forms. But we don’t agree to accept a micro-entrepreneurship, destined to fail, as traditional party politicians have proposed to us, where we should end up carrying enormous debts on our workers’ shoulders and where we should pay from our own pockets social security charges and pension. We are qualified workers, men and women. Politicians can’t squash our workers’ experience, which can be put at the service of the Argentinean community. Our factory can be part of the solution and not the problem as these Mrs. Politicians, who seem to live on another planet, think (Brukman Workers 2003).

Only after their eviction from the factory later that year, with ferocious repression against them and their supporters, did the Brukman workers finally accept the formation of a cooperative as a means of providing a positive exit to the conflict.

The Zanón ceramics workers were always aware of the dangers involved with the cooperative form. They reasoned that a self-governing management by the workers would not be possible with the cooperative form because it did not provide for the full organization and functioning of a democracy. They also contended that the military dictatorship–sanctioned cooperative law contradicted workers’ democracy. Therefore, they considered the regulations controlling the union of ceramics workers—regulations drafted by Zanón and three other factories, the “Ceramics Code”—as well as the “Norms of Cohabitation of Zanón under Workers’ Control,” drawn up by the occupying workers, to be above the norms stipulated by the statute of the cooperative (“Norms” quoted in Tirachini 2004).

As with the Brukman workers, the Zanón workers presented a proposal for nationalization under workers’ control. In this case it was a “proposal for transitory workers’ management,” presented with the support of the National University of Comahue and the University of Buenos Aires. In March 2002 production was started; approximately one month later, on April 8, the workers faced another attempt at eviction. By then some fifty thousand people had endorsed the nationalization process with their signatures.

In May 2004, after twenty-seven months of production managed by the workers, the FaSinPat cooperative was established—the acronym stands for “factory without a boss.” The workers still view the constitution of the cooperative as a temporary measure, as they continue to demand nationalization under workers’ control.

As mentioned, the formation of a cooperative also permits the reappearance of capitalist relations within the factory because the cooperative associates are allowed to contract wage labor. Some factories are in a worse financial situation from this vantage point because they are also a limited-liability company in which workers jointly own stock with outside investors. This is the situation with Yaguané, a meat processing plant, and Pauny, a rural machine factory. In the case of Pauny, a public limited company (PLC), the workers of the factory, who formed the Cooperative of Metallurgical Labor Las Varillas Ltd., hold only about a third of the stock’s portfolio (Moreno 2009).

A third constraint that makes the cooperative option less favorable is the lack of capital to initiate production and the technological obsolescence of the taken factories. The lack of capital is a crucial problem in that it promotes dependency on suppliers or customers. In many cases the workers’ council agrees to work with supplies provided by the customers, who then pay for the industrial processing. In the beginning, this allows factories to conserve labor and reestablish production. But it also reduces earnings, which are generally limited to the pay of the workforce, and creates dependency upon these clients. Consequently, for many workers of the taken factories, externalizing the raw-material aspect of the production chain is viewed as only an initial stage, during which they try to generate enough capital to become independent. In general, this approach to production has not disappeared, although its importance has diminished in some sectors. On average, the taken factories that improve their economic situation rely on production with supplies provided by the customers only 40–50 percent of the time. In many cases, the production using the customer’s own material is carried out on request because the factories do not have enough capital to produce for stock.

Frequently a vicious cycle emerges in which a lack of capital impels workers to adopt certain kinds of productive strategies, which in turn perpetuate the shortage of capital. Thus the level of profit of the taken factories tends to be very low. Brukman, for instance, in 2004 worked partially with customers’ supplies and partially with its own materials. But in 2008 they were working only with clients’ supplies. Graciela, a Brukman worker interviewed in 2008, said:

We’ve been struggling for six years and in fact instead of going up we’re going down. I can tell you that everything is great, that we sell to everyone, but that’s not true. At the end of the week you get two pesos. It is a political matter, but I believe that under capitalism cooperatives don’t work . . . . We’re fighting to be able to buy, but now it’s all fazon work ¹⁶³ . . . the fazon work is like having a boss, and that gives you much anger, it produces much anxiety because you deliver the fazon work and they don’t pay you or they give you a ninety-day post-dated check. They do as it pleases them most.¹⁶⁴

Yet another problem with the cooperative model lies in the technological backwardness of the taken factories. On average, the machinery of the taken factories (not including printing industries) is forty years old. Most of the taken factories were constructed before 1970, and less than 15 percent of them were created after 1990 or had renovated their equipment during that time (see Trinchero 2004). In the case of the metallurgical firm IMPA, the machinery was more than fifty years old. According to an interview with the IMPA workers, new purchases after the workers took control did not redress the problems because they only filled gaps in the productive system rather than replacing defunct elements.

Many of the taken factories had also been deliberately emptied of equipment by their owners before the formal bankruptcy of the firm and the subsequent occupation by the workers. The workers’ councils had to take an obsolete and dismantled factory and make it work again. In some instances, the holes left by the capitalist plundering had to be circumnavigated by outsourcing stages of the productive process. In these cases, “outsourcing” does not imply an economic advantage; workers opted for this only when there was no other choice. For example, as we were told in a 2009 interview, the metallurgical cooperative Diogenes Taborda, which manufactured agricultural machines, needed a special metal beam that cost more than forty thousand dollars. They tried to offer another machine in exchange for the equipment, and they asked for state subsidies to buy it, but when neither of these attempts was successful, the workers had to outsource part of the productive process in order to continue manufacturing.

In other cases the lack of better equipment does not force the outsourcing, but it affects the competitive capability of the factory. In 2004 Brukman lost an export contract because of the low production capacity of their machines, a problem that persisted. In 2008 a worker said: “We need more machines, more technological ones, of course, but for that we need a larger budget.” Then she listed the machines they needed, and most of them cost more than thirty thousand dollars. The prohibitively high cost of repair for the equipment presented another problem. Two Brukman workers are in charge of maintaining the machines, but they don’t have the expertise to fix every problem that appears. As mentioned, the deficiency of the equipment is a legacy of the former capitalist owner. Prior to the takeover, for a brief period Brukman had an automatic cutting machine, but the firm did not complete the payments and had to give it back. When the workers took over the plant the cutting was again done by hand and continues to be done so today.

Taken factories in the printing industry have newer machines; however, technological advances have been extremely rapid in this sector, so even though equipment might not be particularly old, it is sometimes nevertheless technically obsolete. These accelerated technological advances are symptomatic of the deeper process of concentration and centralization that has affected this sector, leading many firms to bankruptcy. This is why there are so many taken factories among the printing industry: Chilavert, as mentioned, or more recently, INDUGRAF. These taken factories operate in a highly competitive sector and for this reason some have entered into agreements to make collective purchases in order to reduce costs. They have even created a cooperative network.

The scale of production is a problem that affects all taken factories. The majority are small factories, although the big meat-processing plants represent an exception to this general rule. The ceramics plant, Zanón, can be considered an exception too if analyzed from a national point of view. But it is still a relatively small factory in comparison to the world competition in its particular economic branch. The problem of scale is exacerbated by the meager use of the spatial capacity in these factories. In 2004 half the taken factories employed less than 50 percent of their installed capacity (see Trinchero 2004).

Worker-Introduced Changes in the Labor Process

The practical demonstration that employers are not needed and that workers can take control of production by themselves has been the main transformation introduced by the taken factories. Not long ago each of these workers occupied an isolated place in production, obeyed orders from above, and had no chance to transmit their opinions, not even about their own specific jobs. Now they collectively decide about all aspects of production.

Another reform introduced in the taken factories relates to the earning structure. Many taken factories have decided to establish equal remunerations for all workers. But some have maintained previous differences. The meat-processing plant La Foresta, for example, maintains the earning disparities between craft workers and unskilled laborers, a decision made by the factory’s general assembly. According to a 2009 interview, the highestearning workers receive twice the income of the lowest-earning workers. These disparities may be related to the nature of a given job involving many different degrees of skill; this is the explanation offered by the workers themselves. However, other factories with the same characteristics, such as the Bragado meat-processing plant, have chosen an egalitarian remuneration system.

A comprehensive analysis of taken factories shows that the essential factor for the selection of an egalitarian income system versus a pay scale seems to be the development of political consciousness among the workers: an egalitarian income system is more frequently found in those taken factories that have faced important struggles, and is much less common among the factories that have not experienced any conflict. Seventy-one percent of recovered factories that were occupied by the workers have egalitarian incomes. In contrast, recovered factories with no history of occupation because they resulted from an arrangement with the capitalist owner have egalitarian incomes in only 31 percent of the cases.

In factories with a deeper political consciousness—the product of a major political struggle—no wage labor is contracted. They have instead enlarged production by adding more workers with the same status as the original cooperative members. For example, at Brukman only 32 out of 132 factory workers supported the entire struggle process and eventually founded the cooperative. When production increased they added more workers, who also became part of the cooperative with the same rights as the original members. The same happened at Zanón, where the new workers were unemployed individuals recruited from the piquetero movement that had supported the occupation of the factory.

A third important element introduced by workers’ control is the change in the labor process. In these factories, the productive process ¹⁶⁵ has not undergone important modifications; mechanized work has remained basically static and the same holds true for manual work. In some instances a certain task may have been mechanized, but because of the capital constraints mentioned above, this is not a common occurrence. The main changes in the labor process have, instead, been related to division of labor, including a tendency to eliminate the separation between manual and intellectual work, the appearance of new means of delegating tasks, and an increase in workers’ versatility.

There have been important modifications regarding the distribution of tasks among workers. Research carried out with Zanón workers shows that the majority of workers (52 percent) have switched from their previous job assignments (Chirico et al. 2003). In the majority of taken factories, the number of workers that held on throughout the struggle and resisted until the formation of the cooperative is smaller than the workforce formerly employed by the capitalist firm. Thus when production begins again many tasks must be reassigned. Other factors also contribute. In order to increase productivity, for instance, workers have become more versatile. One Brukman worker said that prior to the factory occupation she only sewed pockets, but now, once finished with sewing, she performs other functions to finish a garment. In addition, the common experience of the struggle has reduced prior mistrust among workers, and what were formerly craft secrets are now shared openly with coworkers.

Necessity has forced others to develop new skills. Sergio from Brukman, who has committed to the maintenance of the machinery, has had to expand his knowledge in order to fix the various machines in the factory. He also states that with the help of members of the engineering faculty of the University of Buenos Aires, “We redesigned the factory, we put all the machines on the same floor, in order to save energy and to be all together” (Vales and Hacher 2003). This also helped simplify the labor process.

In many cases, as with the taken factories in the printing industry, the administrative employees of the firm do not participate in the struggle. Therefore, when the workers reinitiate production, some of them must perform those administrative jobs.¹⁶⁶ Former manual workers confront the necessity of learning to manage the accounts and handle the legal and economic management of the firm. In this way the taken factories have made advances in the elimination of the division between manual and intellectual work. They also can be regarded as schools in which workers gain knowledge about the economic organization of society.

Internal Organization of Workers

There is a great heterogeneity among taken factories; some go far beyond others in the collective decision-making process. Yet, guided by the cooperative form, and as such required to follow regulations as established in the law of cooperatives, they all share some patterns.The direction of the factory is the responsibility of the administrative council, comprised of a president, secretary, treasurer, and trustee, chosen at sectional meetings, which are held with differing frequencies depending on the cooperative. The assemblies can function on a weekly or monthly basis, but there are cases in which the general assembly gathers only once a year and its decision-making power is more formal than substantive. When the assembly meets more often the president has less power—the roles of the cooperative officers are different in each factory. As the general assemblies become more infrequent, the risk of their being reduced to ceremonial acts increases and the cooperative directors tend to make decisions without consulting the rest of the workers.

This has led to the emergence of internal conflicts. In Yaguané, for example, in April 2004 the assembly dismissed its president, Daniel Flores, a former workers’ delegate. According to Hernán Ares from the new commission that leads the cooperative: “There was a period among his management that the meat-processing plant grew: we slaughtered, we exported, we asked for credits . . . . More than 6,000 heads of cattle were killed each week but the workers remained in the same very poor wage and working conditions we have always had, including dismissals” (Lavaca.org 2004).

Hotel Bauen workers interviewed by the CEICS in 2008 described a similar situation: between 2003 and 2005 the directorate of the cooperative had to be expelled because it intended to sell the firm to capitalist entrepreneurs. The workers rejected this attempt and reorganized the cooperative’s structure in a more democratic way. Although in the two cases mentioned the workers managed to solve the problem, these examples illustrate the risks inherent in the cooperative form.

In some cases a more complex structure has developed. In the printing industry, the factory takeover process laid the foundation for the unification of different endeavors with the objective of making their production more profitable and competitive in the market. One example is the Cooperative Graphics Network (Red Gráfica Cooperativa), which started taking shape in July 2006 when seven cooperatives united to establish a common work agenda. After analyzing the potentialities of their integration, the network was constituted as a federation on July 5, 2007. The founding cooperatives were El Sol, Artes Gráficas Chilavert, Campichuelo, Cogtal, Patricios, Ferrograf, and Cooperativa de Gráficos Asociados Ltd. Two years later, in 2009, three other cooperatives formally joined the federation: Idelgraff, La Nueva Unión, and Punto Gráfico. Since 2010, the cooperatives Envases Flexibles Mataderos, Gráfica Loria, Impresiones Barracas, Montes de Oca, and Visión 7 were also incorporated into the federation.¹⁶⁷

The network maintains a vertical organizational structure, made up of seven different labor sectors: production, commercialization, purchasing, communications, social action, training, technical assistance, and projects. Each of these sectors has two representatives from each cooperative in the network. These sector representatives are subject to input from a general operational coordination, represented by a member with two assistants, one administrative and the other commercial. Above this general coordination is the administration council, made up of three incumbent councillors and two substitutes. The president, secretary, and treasurer who make up the administration council are chosen by one member of each cooperative. In turn, the assembly of associates is the governmental organ of the federation. It is formed of an incumbent delegate and a substitute designated by each one of the cooperatives in the network.

When not part of a cooperative structure, the workers have had to establish an organization that allows them to take charge of production. The characteristics of production in each factory, the number of workers, and, again, their political development, determine different organizational forms. Here the variation is much broader than that concerning the cooperative structure. It is therefore impossible to generalize, so the analysis focuses on the case of Zanón.

When the Zanón workers took over the factory and initiated production, certain internal problems emerged. In September 2002, in order to save the factory, the workers drafted and approved in a general assembly a form of internal statute entitled “The Norms of Cohabitation of Zanón under Workers’ Control.” The document laid out the foundations ruling the organizational dynamic. As mentioned earlier, the “Ceramics Code” and the “Norms” were considered valid beyond the cooperative structure.

In the months prior to the takeover in October 2001, the workers had begun to organize in incipient committees, an approach that continues to inform the running of the factory. For example, after the July 2000 death of Daniel Ferrás in a workshop accident the ceramics workers created a committee for hygiene and safety, the function of which was to supervise the labor safety of the plant workers. This committee continued to function under the workers’ management. It is worth noting that there was a significant diminution in the number of accidents because of it. Likewise, during the crisis of the capitalist company, when workers’ salaries were left in arrears by the employer, the workers created a sales committee in order to boost the liquidation of stocks and, consequently, the recovery of indebted salaries. A similar response can be observed in their creation of a press and circulation committee to publicize the conflict.

As Aiziczon (2006) has pointed out, all the activities of Zanón’s production process are divided into fifty-six sectors, among which are the atomizers, press, lines, ovens, selections, paste laboratory, glazing laboratory, maintenance, stock and dispatch, purchases, sales, administration, security, press, and circulation. The workers from each of these sectors over the three shifts choose a coordinator, who is in charge of maintaining a “control form” of the productive process and compiling the day-to-day needs and problems. These coordinators are part of the council, which is the organ of management and production planning. This organ then proposes a general coordinator for the whole factory. Each council meeting is composed of the general coordinator, the coordinators from each sector, and three members of the internal commission or board of directors from the ceramics union. It is important to note that each of the coordinators is revocable by the general assembly. In effect, the organizational dynamic of the factory proposes the periodic rotation of these posts in order that everyone gets a chance at assuming the directive responsibilities.

The assembly is the workers’ maximal organ of decision-making. On the shift level, the workers carry out weekly assemblies for each shift of an informative or decision-making character; and on the factory-wide level there are general assemblies. The former take place twice a week and are open. Generally, the list of issues to be discussed is displayed at the factory’s entrance so as to inform the workers and, subsequently, the resolutions are voted on. A wide range of questions is discussed in such meetings, such as internal or disciplinary problems. If these problems arise repeatedly, the case is submitted to a coordinators’ meeting and, if necessary, they are resolved in a general assembly. All the resolutions made by the coordinators of each sector are passed to the general assembly, which convenes once a month, where they are accepted or revoked.

Final Reflections

The factory takeover movement in Argentina, as in all of Latin America, is a central component of the political process opened in these countries. Factory occupation and production under workers’ control possess a highly propagandistic nature: they demonstrate to workers all around the globe their own power and potentiality while exposing the parasitic character of the capitalist class. Nothing can be clearer than the example of workers who restart production enterprises emptied and bankrupted by their former owners.

But only a socialist approach can enable these taken factories to fulfill their real destiny. The opposing option, leaving them to the influx of capitalist tendencies, would force them to evolve in either of two capitalist ways. In the successful version the factory would accumulate profit and resemble any other capitalist firm, with characteristics such as the employment of wage labor. Less successful factories would confront bankruptcy, self-exploitation, or hidden proletarianization under the real management of the clients providing supplies. If these two options have not fully developed in Argentina it is because the political movement that arose in the Argentinazo insurrection has not been defeated. Its persistence has helped to reinforce the taken factories’ resistance under adverse circumstances.

The reprise of the economic crisis and the resurgence of the political movement have opened new horizons for the taken factories. In this context the workers urgently need to learn from these recent experiences and this chapter is intended as a modest contribution toward that goal.

References

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