Every day, the 330 workers of Zanón Ceramics Factory (Ceramica Zanón) who both work at and run the largest ceramic floor-tile factory in Argentina are, legally speaking, usurping the factory and its machinery.
That they have been able to sustain this legally precarious situation for two years is due to the incredible solidarity they have garnered from their local community, Neuquen, a desert city of 300,000 in the south of Argentina.
While an outstanding order to evict these workers has existed for nearly a year, the government will not order the police to fulfill it because the political costs would be too high- groups ranging from the teachers’ union to the petroleum workers’ union to the Catholic Church have said that if there is an eviction they will call a general strike throughout the province until the situation is resolved.
CREATING A DEMOCRATIC WORKPLACE
Even before the Argentinian economy collapsed completely in 2001, workers in factories and businesses that had gone bankrupt began the practice of continuing production even after their businesses closed.
Thousands of workers in hundreds of workplaces-ranging from ceramics factories to print shops to hotels-are currently running their businesses better than their former bosses were able to do.
The initial challenges to restarting production include everything from very specific concerns, such as internal sabotage from a small group of workers allied with the former boss, to workers simply wondering how a factory will operate without anyone ordering them around.
A common tactic used by workers to self-manage occupied factories-and used at Zanón- has been to replace a management structure with a group decision-making structure, referred to as an assembly.
Each department or work unit elects a representative to convey department concerns during assemblies, which are attended by all the workers. There, workers vote to approve or reject the departments´ proposals. This ensures that each department is able to propose solutions to its problems and that all of the workers are informed of the actions of each unit.
So, the decision making process at Zanón is transparent and representative. While there are 30 elected ‘coordinators,’
each is elected by their sector and all of their decisions are made in an open assembly-any worker or member of the community can ask at any time to see the financial statements.
There are also two elected ‘coordinators of the coordinators’
who perform many managerial functions, with the difference being that all of their decisions have to be reviewed by all workers, and they are recallable.
Assemblies are held every week, one per shift, and when there are important decisions to be made a shift is given up to a long assembly, with all workers in attendance. These ‘extraordinary’ assemblies are not only about the strategy of running the factory and winning their demands, but also about how to work on joint campaigns with other community groups.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Zanón has won considerable support from all sectors of the Neuquen community because they are committed to creating a factory that is at the service of the community. Their goal is to get the government to expropriate the factory and let the workers run it, and the workers will prioritize production for state and community institutions.
But instead of waiting for the state to act, they are already donating tiles and supporting the struggles of other groups, not just in the street, but having joint political discussions with their allies.
Their openness to support from all sectors and their struggle against corrupt government, bad bosses, and unemployment resulted in solidarity early on in the struggle, with families living below the poverty level donating food or money during the interval between the takeover and the restart of production.
One key factor in creating such a strong wall of support is that Zanón is a large factory in a small city. Almost everyone knows someone who works at Zanón, and while in a large city campaigns come and go, Zanón is the backbone of the labor activism in Neuquen.
Additionally, Zanón’s press office doesn’t just produce internal bulletins, but rather publishes periodicals for the entire community and produces three weekly radio shows. The factory is open to any group who wants a tour, and past groups have ranged from international visitors to the local kindergartens.
They have also allied themselves with the struggle of local native peoples, who have donated clay from their lands to the factory.
Zanón’s workers donate tiles to community centers and hospitals. As a result, the nurses union donates a nurse during each shift to supervise the health of the workers.
Most importantly, each group that supports Zanón receives jobs as they become available. So far, Zanón has opened 90 new positions.
They have turned over security operations (about 30 jobs in
total) to members of an unemployed workers group-people who have been marginalized and deemed as untrustworthy by the rest of society due to their long term unemployment.
Zanón serves as a lesson to all workers that community support cannot only be built during times of crisis, but must be maintained day in and day out.
WEIGHING THE RISKS
Why would anyone want to take over their place of work? The key reason is lack of other options-the risks appear smaller when compared with long term unemployment in an economy that shows little likelihood of improving. In this situation, taking over the workplace could serve to solve a problem, namely the preservation of jobs.
The Zanón workers began their struggle to improve conditions within the factory in June 2000 when a worker died there due to employer negligence and their union-Sindicato Obreros y Empleados Ceramistas del Neuquen (Union of Ceramic Workers and Employees of Neuquen)-did not respond strongly enough to the crisis.
Despite the inaction of union leadership, Zanón’s workers led a nine day strike that ended with workers winning a joint commission of workers and managers to oversee production and safety within the factory. However, the union continued to be unaccountable to the rank and file, doing such things as holding meetings during the middle of shifts when workers could not attend.
Later, in May 2001, management stopped paying full wages, claiming that the factory was not turning a profit. After a 34-day strike (again, an action not supported by the union), the workers won the right to review the accounting books, which clearly showed that the factory was turning a profit.
Due to the strong internal organization that built during this strike, workers from Zanón and other factories ran in opposition to the union leadership and won.
However, on September 5, 2001 the factory’s owner locked out the workers, claiming that there was not enough money to pay their salaries due to outstanding debts and that, despite receiving huge state subsidies, the factory was unable to turn a profit.
The workers camped outside of the factory in protest and, on the 1st of October, entered the factory to prevent the owner from removing the machinery. Soon after, a group of 20 workers proposed that they restart production. After a brief discussion, the majority of the workers agreed that it was the only way to continue to earn a living.
KEEPING PRODUCTION GOING
On March 2, 2002 the factory began producing again, with only one line of production open. Initially, the workers decided to start off producing about 10 percent of what was produced before the lockout and slowly increasing production as not to undermine the quality of the product.
However, by implementing their own ideas to improve production, and with help from engineers from the local university, within a year the workers were producing more than 50 percent of what the factory made before the takeover.
Currently, they are looking to exporting tiles once again, and have become recognized as a not-for-profit organization, as all of the profits are used to improve production or make donations to the community.
Before the takeover, some workers earned twice as much as others; now everyone earns the same ($800 pesos, or about $270 dollars, a good salary in Neuquen). Workers report feeling less stressed as they can take breaks when they need to and, most importantly, accidents, once common, are now rare occurrences.
As one poster says ‘Now, there are no bosses. Safety is the responsibility of all of us.’
[Ginger Gentile, a former United Students Against Sweatshops activist and UNITE staff member, is currently working with a community organizing project in Buenos Aires, Argentina.]
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