Worker-owned and operated factories score a victory in ... ARGENTINA!

after cranking out the previous pretty uniformly gloomy post about argentina, i just so happened to run across the following, an article about a notable victory in the on-going battle of argentina workers for some justice and a bit of self-determination in the face of the horrendous abuses of the wave of privatization and summary firings that took place in the late 90s and early 00s...

The workers at Argentina's occupied ceramics factory, FASINPAT (Factory Without a Boss), won a major victory this week: the factory now definitively belongs to the people in legal terms. The provincial legislature voted in favor of expropriating the ceramics factory and handing it over to the workers cooperative to manage legally and indefinitely. Since 2001, the workers at Zanon have fought for legal recognition of worker control at Latin America's largest ceramics factory which has created jobs, spearheaded community projects, supported social movements world-wide and shown the world that workers don't need bosses.

[...]

FASINPAT has operated under worker control since 2001 when Zanon's owners decided to close its doors and fire the workers without paying months of back pay or severance pay. Leading up to the massive layoffs and plant's closure, workers went on strike in 2000. The owner, Luis Zanon, with over 75 million dollars in debt to public and private creditors (including the World Bank for over 20 million dollars), fired en masse most of the workers and closed the factory in 2001-a bosses' lockout. In October 2001, workers declared the plant under worker control. The workers subsequently camped outside the factory for four months, pamphleteering and partially blocking a highway leading to the capital city of Neuquén. While the workers were camping outside the factory, a court ruled that the employees could sell off remaining stock. After the stock ran out, on March 2, 2002, the workers' assembly voted to start up production without a boss. Since the occupation, the workers renamed the factory FASINPAT (Factory without a Boss).

i tried to figure out the acronym FASINPAT and could only come up with "fabrica" (factory) "sin" (without) "patron" (patron?)...

when i was the general manager for the operations of an airline at a small airport, i used to tell the 34 folks who worked for me that they were perfectly capable of running things without a manager, ergo without me... steeped as they were in the u.s. form of patriarchal, authoritarian management, they simply couldn't imagine NOT having a manager... sigh...

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Michael Parenti on global financiers' view of the current U.S. economy: "We've destroyed the social democracy"

i've said all along that the goal of the super-rich elites was to completely gut any semblance of social contract, whether it be in the u.s. or anywhere else in the world, and, for the most part, they've done a damn good job...

In 1978, a number of these financiers came out and said, “This country is just heading for a social democracy, and we don’t want that.” I mean, they used the term “social democracy.” They’re aware of these things. A few months ago in The New Yorker, there was an article about how Republicans had a loss for issues, and one of them said, “Well, the reason we’re at a loss is because we’ve accomplished all we wanted to. We’ve destroyed the social democracy.” And that’s their goal.

And if you listen to them now, I mean, it’s fascinating and outrageous. They’re talking about doing nothing, just putting a cap on all spending, that the market is in a stage of correction. They use terms like “correction” or “adjustment.” They don’t mind recessions. Recessions are fine. It allows them to buy up smaller companies at bargain prices. It disciplines labor. It humiliates and beats back people. And this, I think, is what we’re facing. And I’m infuriated by the Republicans in the Congress and the way they’re going at this. The only passion they show is to protect the tax cuts for the super rich. That seems to be the only interest they have.

[...]

Well, I argue that one of the functions of a capitalist state is to defend capitalism from itself, to defend capitalism from the capitalists. It was Marx—dare we mention him? I hear he’s coming back in style. It was Marx who said one capitalist will kill many other capitalists, that the system begins to consume itself. We see that with Bernard Madoff and the like.

And it’s not merely because of a number of wicked personalities, because these personalities are brought to the fore. Those are the people who get the rewards. Those are the people who—yes, and what we need are drastic sets of regulations, and there hasn’t been enough talk. We just got a vague reference to it here, Geithner referencing and saying, well, it’s going to be a little bit of a different camp, a little more responsible, accountable maybe. But as far as actual regulations, we haven’t seen it.

The free market does not work. It’s not free. It’s not really a market; it’s a plunder. And it has to be done away with.

i completely agree...

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