[Reader-list] Argentina's Luddite rulers

[Harsh Kapoor]

You can try reaching Klein via: <admin at nologo.org>

At 5:05 AM +0000 25/4/03, vishwajyoti  ghosh wrote:
>does anyone have:
>naomi klein's email id???
>
>On Fri, 25 Apr 2003 Harsh Kapoor wrote :
>>Globe and Mail
>>April 24, 2003
>>
>>Argentina's Luddite rulers
>>
>>Workers in the occupied factories have a different vision: Smash the logic,
>>not the machines
>>
>>By Naomi Klein
>>
>>In 1812, bands of British weavers and knitters raided textile mills and
>>smashed industrial machines with their hammers. According to the Luddites,
>>the new mechanized looms had eliminated thousands of jobs, broken
>>communities and deserved to be destroyed. The British government disagreed
>>and called in 14,000 soldiers to brutally repress the worker revolt and
>>protect the machines.
>>
>>Fast-forward two centuries to another textile factory, this one in Buenos
>>Aires. At Brukman, which has been producing men's suits for 50 years, it's
>>the riot police who smash the sewing machines and the 58 workers who risk
>>their lives to protect them.
>>
>>On Monday, the Brukman factory was the site of the worst repression Buenos
>>Aires has seen in almost a year. Police had evicted the workers in the
>>middle of the night and turned the entire block into a military zone guarded
>>by machine guns and attack dogs. Unable to get into the factory and complete
>>an order for 3,000 pairs of dress trousers, the workers gathered a huge
>>crowd of supporters and announced it was time to go back to work. At 5 p.m.,
>>50 middle-aged seamstresses in no-nonsense haircuts, sensible shoes and blue
>>smocks walked up to the police fence. Someone pushed, the fence fell, and
>>the Brukman women, unarmed and arm in arm, slowly walked through.
>>
>>They had only taken a few steps when the police began shooting: tear gas,
>>water cannons, rubber bullets, then lead. The police even charged the
>>Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, in their white headscarves embroidered with
>>the names of their "disappeared" children. Dozens of demonstrators were
>>injured.
>>
>>This is a snapshot of Argentina less than a week before its presidential
>>election. Each of the five major candidates is promising to put this
>>crisis-ravaged country back to work. Yet Brukman's workers are treated as if
>>sewing a grey suit were a capital crime.
>>
>>Why this state Luddism, this rage at machines? Well, Brukman isn't just any
>>factory; it's a fabrica ocupada, one of almost 200 factories across the
>>country that have been taken over and run by their workers in the past 18
>>months. For many, the factories, employing more than 10,000 nationwide and
>>producing everything from tractors to ice cream, are seen not just as an
>>economic alternative, but as a political one as well. "They are afraid of us
>>because we have shown that, if we can manage a factory, we can also manage a
>>country," Brukman worker Celia Martinez said on Monday night. "That's why
>>this government decided to repress us."
>>
>>At first glance, Brukman looks like every other garment factory in the
>>world. As in Mexico's hypermodern maquiladoras and Toronto's crumbling coat
>>factories, Brukman is filled with women hunched over sewing machines, their
>>eyes straining and fingers flying over fabric and thread. What makes Brukman
>>different are the sounds. Along with the familiar roar of machines and hiss
>>of steam is the Bolivian folk music, coming from a small tape deck at the
>>back of the room, and softly spoken voices, as older workers show younger
>>ones new stitches. "They wouldn't let us do that before," Ms. Martinez says.
>>"They wouldn't let us get up from our workspaces or listen to music. But why
>>not listen to music, to lift the spirits a bit?"
>>
>>In Buenos Aires, every week brings news of a new occupation: a four-star
>>hotel now run by its cleaning staff, a supermarket taken over by its clerks,
>>a regional airline about to be turned into a co-operative by the pilots and
>>attendants. In small Trotskyist journals around the world, Argentina's
>>occupied factories, where the workers have seized the means of production,
>>are giddily hailed as the dawn of a socialist utopia. In large business
>>magazines such as The Economist, they are ominously described as a threat to
>>the sacred principle of private property. The truth lies in between.
>>
>>At Brukman, for instance, the means of production weren't seized -- they
>>were simply picked up after they had been abandoned by their legal owners.
>>The factory had been in decline for several years, and debts to utility
>>companies were piling up. The seamstresses had seen their salaries slashed
>>from 100 pesos a week to two pesos -- not enough for bus fare.
>>
>>On Dec. 18, the workers decided it was time to demand a travel allowance.
>>The owners, pleading poverty, told the workers to wait at the factory while
>>they looked for the money. "We waited until night," Ms. Martinez says. "No
>>one came."
>>
>>After getting the keys from the doorman, Ms. Martinez and the other workers
>>slept at the factory. They have been running it every since. They have paid
>>the outstanding bills, attracted new clients and, without profits and
>>management salaries to worry about, paid themselves steady salaries. All
>>these decisions have been made by vote in open assemblies. "I don't know why
>>the owners had such a hard time," Ms. Martinez says. "I don't know much
>>about accounting, but for me it's easy: addition and subtraction."
>>
>>Brukman has come to represent a new kind of labour movement in Argentina,
>>one that is not based on the power to stop working (the traditional union
>>tactic) but on the dogged determination to keep working no matter what. It's
>>a demand that is not driven by dogmatism but by realism: In a country where
>>58 per cent of the population is living in poverty, workers know they are a
>>paycheque away from having to beg and scavenge to survive. The spectre
>>haunting Argentina's occupied factories is not communism, but indigence.
>>
>>But isn't it simple theft? After all, these workers didn't buy the machines,
>>the owners did -- if they want to sell them or move them to another country,
>>surely that's their right. As the federal judge wrote in Brukman's eviction
>>order, "Life and physical integrity have no supremacy over economic
>>interests."
>>
>>Perhaps unintentionally, he has summed up the naked logic of deregulated
>>globalization: Capital must be free to seek out the lowest wages and most
>>generous incentives, regardless of the toll that process takes on people.
>>
>>The workers in Argentina's occupied factories have a different vision. Their
>>lawyers argue that the owners of these factories have already violated basic
>>market principles by failing to pay their employees and their creditors,
>>even while collecting huge subsidies from the state. Why can't the state now
>>insist that the indebted companies' remaining assets continue to serve the
>>public with steady jobs? Dozens of workers' co-operatives have already been
>>awarded legal expropriation. Brukman is still fighting.
>>
>>Come to think of it, the Luddites made a similar argument in 1812. The new
>>textile mills put profits for a few before an entire way of life. Those
>>textile workers tried to fight that destructive logic by smashing the
>>machines. The Brukman workers have a much better plan: They want to protect
>>the machines and smash the logic.
>>
>>
>>Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and Fences and Windows.
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