09/25 00:19
Argentine Workers Seize Factories, Assets as Recession
Deepens
By Helen Murphy
Buenos Aires, Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Domingo Ibanez
has a new boss: himself. Six months ago he and 44
other workers seized the bankrupt ice-cream flavoring
factory where they worked.
Now the plant in Barracas, a Buenos Aires neighborhood
of derelict food factories, runs at about one-tenth
capacity to produce 2 tons of flavorings a day.
Supervisors, administrative staff, laborers and
cleaners share profits equally, each earning about 25
centavos ($0.07) an hour.
``All we want is to keep the factory open,'' said
Ibanez, 53, as he mixed a vat of butterscotch syrup.
``The alternative is unemployment, and I'd probably
never get another job.''
As Argentina's four-year recession forces companies
out of business, workers have commandeered the
factories, machinery and inventories of more than 100
former employers in the last nine months, either to
save their jobs or in lieu of back pay. Authorities
turn a blind eye to such seizures in a country with
unemployment at 22 percent and half the population in
poverty.
``Argentina is going back to the Dark Ages,'' said
Oscar Liberman, chief economist at Fundacion Mercado,
a think tank. ``When the government doesn't provide
solutions to the people's problems they will look for
their own solutions.''
Factory seizures are just one consequence of the
economic crisis in Argentina, sparked when the
government defaulted on $95 billion of debt,
restricted withdrawals from bank accounts and devalued
the currency eight months ago.
Unable to pay debt or raise financing, and with demand
for their goods dwindling, more than 500 companies
have gone bankrupt and thousands of others closed
down, swelling the number of workers who are either
unemployed or with only part-time jobs to 5.6 million.
Thousands Comb Streets
Many who have taken over the means of production
receive little more than their bus fare to work and a
hot meal in the canteen. Ibanez, who has worked at the
flavorings plant since it opened 30 years ago, says he
counts himself lucky not to be one of the thousands
who comb the streets of Buenos Aires each night for
food, newspapers, cardboard and cans to sell.
The 100 cooperatives created this year employ about
10,000 people, or 2 percent of Argentina's actively
employed workforce. Many are part of the country's
food industry, including Frigorifico Yaguane, a
slaughterhouse in Gonzalez Catan, a town just south of
Buenos Aires, and the Cooperativa Lactea dairy
products company in Las Flores, a rural community in
Buenos Aires province.
Other people have turned to crime. More than one
violent crime is committed every minute in Argentina,
according to police figures, and theft is spreading.
Between January and June, kidnappings in the greater
Buenos Aires area rose six-fold from a year earlier.
Crime Supports Business
Some of that crime supports business. At Pablo
Fromini's metal workshop on the shantytown outskirts
of Buenos Aires, Fromini pays 3.2 pesos a kilo (2.2
pounds) for copper wire he says is probably stolen.
``I don't care where it comes from as long as I can
make a living,'' said Fromini, adding that he receives
hundreds of offers a day from people selling wire.
Argentina's telephone, railroad and electricity
companies say theft of copper wire is rife. Edenor SA
estimates 7 kilometers (4.4 miles) of wire is stolen
from it each month, said Alberto Lippi, a spokesman
for the Buenos Aires electricity distributor.
Dismissed workers pressure former employers to make
good on unpaid salaries by holding assets for ransom.
At Lavalan, a wool processor that went bankrupt in
February, sacked workers have blocked 500 tons of
unwashed fleece from leaving the company's plant in
Avellaneda, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
Fight With Police
``They owe us money,'' said Santiago Maldonado, who
worked at the plant for 22 years.
Early this month, Maldonado and other pickets fought
off police who had been sent to enforce a court order
to return the wool to one of its owners, Marcelo
Fowler. He values it at $300,000.
``Nowadays the mob can appropriate goods and the
authorities are afraid to do anything,'' said Fowler.
``We're heading back to the days after the Russian
Revolution.'' Police now stand guard outside the
plant, though they haven't made further efforts to
recover the wool.
Luis Cara, a lawyer who gives legal advice to workers
seeking to set up cooperatives and acts as an
intermediary between them and former employers, says
plant seizures sometimes are the only way employees
can receive their due.
``The owners usually owe at least 10 months in back
pay, and that's almost impossible to get back,'' said
Cara. ``I help them get organized in secret and make
the most of their situation.''
Ownership Granted
If the past is a guide, workers at the flavorings
factory and elsewhere may be able to hold onto their
appropriated assets. Courts gave workers ownership of
IMPA, which produces aluminum tubes and foil, after
they took over the plant in 1997. At the time, workers
earned 5 pesos a day and many slept at the factory
because they couldn't afford the fare home.
Since then, the cooperative has repaid $7 million of
debt to electricity companies, suppliers and banks,
and workers earn ``a respectable 750 pesos a month,''
said Guillermo Robledo, who helps run IMPA.
``We are seen as the success story,'' said Robledo
``We have gone from absolutely zero to producing about
600,000 tons of metal a month and paying our bills.''
``Other co-ops can do the same,'' added Robledo, who
expects the number of cooperatives in Argentina to
double in the next year.
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