Workers in Argentina have tried to prevent job losses by refusing to stop working when their employers’ businesses go bankrupt. Jobs at nearly 200 fabricas recuperadas, or recuperated factories, have been saved by workers who use a little-known expropriation law to prevent removal of equipment by creditors and to seek receivership of the factories. The businesses range from ice cream factories and metal works to four-star hotels and shipyards.
Photo Credit: CTA Buenos Aires/enREDando
Workers Save Jobs Through Factory Occupations
Once hailed as an “economic miracle,” Argentina slipped into recession in the late 1990s, pushing many Argentineans into poverty. The factory occupation movement arose spontaneously in response to economic decline. The approach has followed a general pattern.
First, the business falls into bankruptcy or is abandoned. The workers take over the business and run it cooperatively, preventing creditors from removing machinery while seeking a court order granting them the right to continue the business in compensation for unpaid back wages. This order is granted under a law originally intended to allow local governments to seize property for public works projects. The workers must agree to pay the owners the fair value of the assets over an established period of time and can pay themselves only if they turn a profit.
More than 10,000 jobs have been saved as a result of this tactic and workers in several recuperated factories are on their way to owning the assets of the businesses they occupied.
This tactic emphasizes the power of personal stories in the fight to affect change. It taps into the power of reading the words of real people experiencing the abuse. They write in their own words and handwriting. From the impacts of this tactic, we learn that success can come when individuals get involved. This engaged individuals to take interest in advocating for local and state policy.
New Tactics in Human Rights does not advocate for or endorse specific tactics, policies or issues.
