By DPA
Buenos Aires : An enterprise in the hands of workers sounds like a Marxist dream. In Argentina, it has been fulfilled in some 200 factories and businesses.
Since being occupied during Argentina’s 2001 economic collapse, many of these same firms have lived up to the capitalist ideal — becoming productive and profitable, even investing and creating new jobs.
For seven years, the firms have been managed by the workers from the depths of the crisis that led to the Argentine collapse through today’s economic boom.
During the years of recession leading into the late 2001 collapse and the government’s 2002 default on international debt, thousands of Argentine firms failed. At times, the economy shrank dramatically, and the ranks of the unemployed and underemployed swelled to more than 40 percent at times.
In a bid to keep their jobs, workers occupied the premises of bankrupt companies and continued production under their own leadership. The process attracted worldwide interest, but most economists dismissed the worker-occupied enterprises as a crisis phenomenon.
Since then, though, the Argentine economy began to stabilize in late 2002 and has grown steadily around 9 percent a year from 2003-06.
One of the best-known businesses where the workers took over is the Hotel Bauen in central Buenos Aires.
The porter holds the taxi door open and a red carpet leads into the lobby, where receptionist Jose Alvarez meets guests. “I love this job because I always have contact with people,” said Alvarez, 50.
He has worked at the hotel since 1980, but was thrown out of work when it closed in 2001.
“From one day to the next,” he remembers, taking off his reading glasses and wrinkling his brow. “We had no idea of the financial situation of the hotel.”
However, employees soon got organized. In March 2003, they forced their way into the building, and they have not left it since. In the once dilapidated and boarded up lobby, there is now a modern bar, where waiters wearing white shirts and friendly smiles attend to patrons.
Only the volumes in the hotel’s own bookshop and the colourful murals speak of Marx, Lenin and class struggle.
The workers cooperative has not yet managed to obtain formal ownership of the building. “We demand that it is expropriated from the old owner,” cooperative founder Ricardo Perez told DPA.
Many occupied businesses follow similar storylines — bankruptcy, unemployment and occupation, followed by tough times under self-management before achieving financial stability.
The businesses themselves were not always at the root of the bankruptcies. In several cases, owners overstretched themselves speculating in financial markets or failed in other big projects.
It is estimated that there are currently some 250 occupied businesses in Argentina and more are springing up all the time.
“In the past three months, four new factories have joined the movement,” cheers Alejandro Coronel, vice president of the national union of occupied firms.
Those already in place have added to their workforces by hiring new people, in some cases even doubling payrolls. Everyone gets the same salary, even for different jobs within the same firm.
Before it first closed its doors, for example, the Hotel Bauen had 70 employees who often worked overtime to keep the place running and in good maintenance. Today, there are 160 employees, and none works more than 40 hours a week.
From the outside, worker-managed businesses behave like traditional companies. In internal relations, however, there are not always simple, clear systems of participation in the decision-making process.
Decisions ranging from investments to wages – both hikes and cuts – are taken at the grass-roots level. Experience has shown that the most successful businesses take participation seriously.
“A firm must also have a social usefulness,” said Gerardo Pensavalle, spokesman for the Hotel Bauen.
For instance, poor families from Argentina’s provinces are offered discounted rooms in the three-star hotel if they have a child undergoing surgery in a Buenos Aires hospital.