>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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