This week's stories: Proof That Bosses Are Worse Than Useless...New
Refugee Centre Has Same Old Brutality...I Don't Care What You Want,
You're Getting Freedom of Choice...
Like many people in Argentina, the employees at the Grissinopoli bread
factory were caught up in the country's economic collapse, after the
government completely followed International Monetary Fund policy.
They saw their weekly salary steadily decline from 150 pesos to 100 and
then to 40.
Finally, with the firm headed for bankruptcy, the workers demanded
compensation. The plant manager offered 10 pesos to each of the 14
employees, and asked them to leave the factory.
"He closed the shutters, and we stayed inside," said Norma Pintos, 49,
who has worked at the factory for 11 years. "We just wanted to keep
coming to work."
What began as a last-ditch effort to save their jobs, or at the very
least to get some back wages, turned into an effort to gain control of
the factory.
The workers began taking turns guarding the factory 24 hours a day,
surviving by asking for spare change at the public university and
selling food on the street.
Four months later, the city government handed the factory handed it over
to the workers.
In little more than a year, workers have seized control of dozens of
foundering factories across Argentina.
In some cases the factories have not just survived, but are doing better
than under their previous ownerships.
In February, the owners of the Ghelco factory locked the doors and soon
afterwards filed for bankruptcy. The workers, who were owed the
equivalent of thousands of dollars in back wages and benefits, were left
to fend for themselves as they awaited the outcome of a long and
uncertain legal process.
At the urging of Luis Caro, a lawyer who has represented some 40
occupied factories, the workers formed a co-operative and mounted a
permanent protest in front of the factory, preventing attempts to remove
any equipment or inventory.
After three months the bankruptcy judge allowed them temporarily to rent
the factory. In September, the Buenos Aires legislature expropriated
Ghelco and gave it to the co-operative.
Now 43 of Ghelco's former employees, all of whom worked on the factory
floor, run the company.
Workers at another factory are earning more than twice as much as they
did as employees and are set to take on 20 new members. They are
expanding the plant and have plans to export their products.
"The fellows still think this is all a dream," said the co-operative's
president, Roberto Salcedo, 49. "Nowadays if you lose your job you know
that you aren't going to find work again, and much less at our age."
The workers say that one reason they can run the factory better than
their managers and bosses is because of the money freed by getting rid
of the owners' hefty take and the higher salaries paid to managerial
staff.
As in most of the occupied factories, the Union and Force Co-operative
has an egalitarian pay scale. Decisions are made by direct vote in
regular assemblies and each worker earns the same, based on the previous
week's profits.
Caro estimates that workers have taken over 100 factories and other
businesses nationwide. While most takeovers have been at factories, they
have also included a supermarket, a medical clinic, a mine and a shipyard.
With local support for the factory-occupying workers strong, authorities
have had little success removing them by force.
In March, about 200 people from neighbourhood assemblies and human
rights groups converged on the worker-controlled Brukman textile
factory, forcing the retreat of 70 riot police who were acting on a
judge's order to reclaim the property.
"The idea that a capitalist is needed to organise production is being
demystified," said Christian Castillo, a sociology professor at the
University of Buenos Aires.
(Sydney Morning Herald, November 9).
Detainees at the new Baxter refugee detention centre had their heads
kicked by guards during an altercation.
In an email, Anne Simpson, from the Bellingen Rural Australians Refugees
group, said an asylum seeker told her about 30 guards in full riot gear
beat a detainee during the incident.
Another refugee advocate was told detainees had to lie on the ground and
were kicked in the head by guards.
(news.com.au, November 5).
The Community and Public Sector Union has called on WR Minister Tony
Abbott to come clean on reports he has proposed that the entire
Commonwealth public sector workforce to be put on Australian Workplace
Agreements - the unpopular system of individual contracts favoured by
the government. AWAs involve individuals bargaining directly with
managers without union involvement. Unions say that this gives all the
power to management and leads to lower wages and worse conditions.
The minister's spokesperson refused to comment.
CPSU national secretary Adrian O'Connell said the reforms, if true,
would damage the integrity of the public service. "If Tony Abbott is
fair dinkum about freedom of choice, he should respect the choices that
tens of thousands of people have already made - that is, to be part of
collective workplace agreements," he said.
According to the Herald Sun, Abbott's plans also include bonuses for
workers who sign AWAs, holding back promotions for those that don't and
making AWAs compulsory for all new public servants. The union is looking
at its legal options and thinks at this stage many of Abbott's proposals
may be impossible to carry out under current laws. "As far as we can
ascertain based on information in the media, what the minister is
putting forward runs contrary to the Workplace Relations Act and the
Public Service Act," O'Connell said. While not shedding any light on the
alleged proposals, Abbott's spokesperson did not hide the minister's
preference for AWAs, saying they are "a beneficial form of employment
contract" offering "flexibilities and choice". "The government is always
keen to encourage people to sign AWAs," she said.
Less than six per cent of Commonwealth public servants are on Australian
Workplace Agreements, and Abbott is currently embroiled in an industrial
dispute in his own department over plans to force workers off the union
agreement.
The low take up of AWA's in the Federal public sector is seen to be an
embarrassment to the Government, which has often lectured the business
sector that it must do more to encourage individual contracts.
Abbott's reported plans resemble former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett's
1997 crackdown on the public service in which thousands of public
servants were fired.
(NSW Labor Council website).
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Some other Australian anarchist websites:
www.angry.at/racists - Anarchist/anti-racist music site with free mp3s,
Real Audio, Real Video, band interviews etc. Now with internet radio.
www.dolearmy.org - information for unemployed people.
www.activate.8m.com - anarchist magazine aimed at teenagers.
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