Workers' self-management

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Poster for the Movimiento Nacional de Empresas Recuperadas (MNER), at a worker-recovered print shop, Chilavert Artes Gráficas in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Worker self-management (or autogestion) is a form of workplace decision-making in which the employees themselves agree on choices (for issues like customer care, general production methods, scheduling, division of labour etc.) instead of the traditional authoritative supervisor telling workers what to do, how to do it and where to do it. One of the main practical example of such self-management resides in the "recovered factories" movement (in Spanish, fábrica recuperada), where workers have taken over control of the firm, commonly after intentional bankruptcy by the management or after a factory occupation to prevent the risk of a lock out. Note that the Spanish verb recuperar means not only "to get back", "to take back" or "to reclaim" but also "to put back into good condition". Although initially referring to industrial facilities, the term may be extensive to businesses other than factories.

English-language coverage of this phenomenon employs several different translations of the original Spanish expression besides recovered factory. Commonly attested ones are recuperated factory, reclaimed factory, and worker-run factory. It is also known as "autogestion," which comes from the French word designing self-management (whether in factories or in popular education systems or anywhere else).

Workers' self-management is often the decision-making model used in co-operative economic arrangements such as worker cooperatives, workers' councils, and in participatory economics, and similar arrangements where the workplace operates without a boss.

Critics argue that consulting all employees for every tiny issue is time consuming, inefficient and thus ineffective. However, as seen in real world examples, only large-scale decisions are made by all employees during a council meeting and small decisions are made by those implementing them while coordinating with the rest and following more general agreements.

1 Theory
2 History
3 South America
- 3.1 Wikinews related to Argentina
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Theory

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Autogestion was first theorized by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon during the first part of the 19th century. It then became a primary component of trade unions organizations, in particular concerning revolutionary syndicalism. French trade-union CFDT ("Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail") included worker self-management in its 1970 program, before abandoning it afterward. The ideas of workers' self-management are still famously advanced by the IWW.

[edit] History

The most complete experience of workers' self-management took place during the Spanish Revolution (1936-1939).

In the 1950s, Titoist Yugoslavia claimed during the Cold War to choose a socialist autogestion way, which led to his break with Moscow. The economy of Yugoslavia was organized according to the theories of Tito and Milovan Đilas.

Following May 68 in France, Lip, a clockwork factory based in Besançon, was self-managed between 1970 and 1973, after an attempt by share-holders to close it down. CFDT trade-unionist Charles Piaget led the strike allowing workers to claim back the means of production. The Unified Socialist Party (PSU), which included former Radical Pierre Mendès-France, was in favour of autogestion or self-management.

In the 1970s, the Spanish Legitimist Carlist movement split among the supporters of Don Carlos Hugo's new Carlist Party, confederalist and autogestionary, and his brother Sixto Enrique de Borbón' Carlist Traditionalist Communion, extreme-right.

[edit] South America

In October 2005 the first Encuentro Latinoamericano de Empresas Recuperadas ("Latin American Encounter of Recovered Companies") in Caracas, Venezuela, with representatives of 263 such companies from different countries living similar economical and social situations. The meeting had, as its main outcome, the Compromiso de Caracas (Caracas' Commitment); a vindicating text of the movement.

Throughout the 1990s in Argentina's southern province of Neuquén, drastic economic and political events occurred where the citizens ultimately rose up. Although the first shift occurred in a single factory, bosses were progressively fired throughout the province so that by 2005 the workers of the province controlled most of the factories.

In the wake of the 2001 economic crisis, about 200 Argentine companies were "recovered" by their workers and turned into co-operatives. Prominent examples include the Brukman factory, the Hotel Bauen and FaSinPat (formerly known as Zanon). As of 2005, about 15,000 Argentine workers run recovered factories ^[1].

The phenomenon of fabricas recuperadas ("recovered factories" is not new in Argentina. Rather, such social movements were completely dismanteled during the so-called "Dirty War" in the 1970s. Thus, during Héctor Cámpora's first months of government (May-July 1973), a rather moderate and left-wing Peronist, approximatively 600 social conflicts, strikes and factory occupations had taken place.^[2]

Many recovered factories are run co-operatively and all workers receive the same wage. Important management decisions are taken democratically by an assembly of all workers, rather than by professional managers.

The proliferation of these "recoveries" has led to the formation of a recovered factory movement, which has ties to a diverse political network including Peronists on the left and right, anarchists and communists. Organizationally, this includes two major federations of recovered factories, the larger Movimiento Nacional de Empresas Recuperadas (or National Movement of Recuperated Businesses, or MNER) on the left and the smaller Movimiento Nacional de Fabricas Recuperadas (National Movement of Recuperated Factories or MNFR) on the right ^[3]. Some labor unions, unemployed protestors (known as piqueteros), traditional worker cooperatives and a range of political groups have also provided support for these take-overs.

One of the highest difficulties such a movement face is its relation towards the classic economic system, as most classicly-managed firms refused, for various reasons (among which ideological hostility to the very principle of autogestion) to work and deal with recovered factories. Thus, isolated recovered factories find it easier to work together in building an alternative economic system and thus manage to reach a critical size and power which enables it to negotiate with the ordinary capitalistic firms.

[edit] Wikinews related to Argentina

Argentinian workers preparing to defend control of factory, April 26, 2005

[edit] References

^ Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, Zanon on Znet, December 4, 2004 (English)
^ Hugo Moreno, Le désastre argentin. Péronisme, politique et violence sociale (1930-2001), Editions Syllepses, Paris, 2005, p.109 (French)
^ Marie Trigona, [http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=995 Recuperated Enterprises in Argentina Reversing the Logic of Capitalism], Znet, March 27, 2006 (English)