Versión en español aquí.
Can the occupation and self-management of factories constitute a viable solution in Europe, not only to growing unemployment and poverty, but also to the very exploitation and alienation that lie at the core of capitalist production?
February 2014
Fralib
is a herb processing and packaging factory located 20-odd kilometres away from the southern French
port city of Marseille. The previous owner of the factory, chemical
and agri-food giant Unilever, decided 3 years ago to move production
of Lipton tea abroad to save on labour costs. The 80 workers, through protest
and boycott campaigns, have demanded that the factory stays open and,
after this proved impossible, they decided to take production into
their own hands. They have recently restarted the machines of the big factory to produce a test batch of linden tea based on local
produce, and they are currently looking for ways to restart
production in full capacity. It is one of a handful of European
factories that, with or without a radical or transformational
discourse, have moved towards workers' self-management of production.
The
occupation of businesses by workers and their democratic
management through horizontal decision-making processes is a
centuries-old practice, that has however reemerged around the turn of
the century -most prominently in Argentina, where currently there are
about 300 workplaces "recovered" by about 15.000 workers.
Can this model also constitute a viable solution in Europe, not only
to growing unemployment and poverty, but also to the very
exploitation and alienation that lie at the core of capitalist
production? This was the main question that the first European
“Workers' Economy” international meeting, held on January
31 and February 1 at the occupied factory of Fralib, tried to
address. The idea behind these independent and self-funded events was
born 7 years ago in Argentina, with its 2-decade long tradition of
factory occupations. Soon after similar events were held in Brazil and Mexico.
This first European edition of the gathering brought together not only
workers of the self-managed occupied factories from around Europe, but also academics, activists,
trade unions, and organizations that promote and study
self-management, such as French Association Autogestion and Spanish ICEA. About 200 people coming from a dozen of countries
attended a complex event held among the blinking lights of the tea
packing machinery of the company. Parallel translation to 3
languages, carried out by activist-translators' volunteer network Babels was instrumental in bringing down the language barrier
and joining together so many different and geographically distant
experiences.
Participants,
apart from hosts Fralib, included Pilpa, an occupied
ice-cream factory from Carcassone, France; Officina Zero and Rimaflow,
two ex-industrial spaces occupied by their workers and other activists in
Roma and Milan respectively; and VioMe, one of the few
self-managed experiences so far to have achieved a stable -although
limited- income for the workers, through the production of ecological
detergents in their occupied factory in Thessaloniki, Greece. Another guest, an Argentinian worker of the Pigüé textile factory, tried
to draw parallels between the early stages of the movement in
crisis-stricken Argentina and the nascent European movement. Many more experiences in workers’ self-management and cooperative economy were shared from places as diverse as Serbia, Spain, Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil.
Although
the will to democratize production and redistribute wealth “is in
the DNA of workers”, as Andrés Ruggeri, militant Argentinian researcher and one of the main promoters of the event, pointed out,
experiences of factory occupation and self-management are as diverse
as the political, economic and historical contexts they take place
in. Often the workers have to deal with a production unit that is
obsolete or produces products that do not have demand (this is the case of Officina Zero). The inventiveness and creativity of the workers
in these cases, and most importantly their close cooperation with the
wider community, can help reconvert production towards more useful
and environmentally sound products. In the case of the Italian
factories, this reconversion will permit, among other activities,
salvaging and recycling electronic equipment.
Common
challenges faced by occupied factories include state repression, huge
bureaucratic hurdles, lack of institutional framework, and the
hostility of the ex-owners, political parties and bureaucratic trade
unions. They often operate within economies that are already in great
recession (such is the case of VioMe and most Argentinian factories
in the early 21st century) and thus re-entering
the market and ensuring an income are tough feats to accomplish.
Dangers
also lie ahead in the case of economic success. How can the workers
safeguard the radical character of the experiment and avoid becoming
an “alternative” multi-shareholder capitalist enterprise guided
by the profit principle or using wage labour? In answer to that,
many participants pointed towards the close relationship with the
wider community. It is not sufficient for production to be
worker-controlled, although it is a necessary first step to break the
vicious circle of capitalist exploitation. Production should also be
socially controlled, it should be environmentally and politically
sound and grounded on the values of respect and solidarity.
The
workers of VioMe echoed these concerns when they announced that, in
the statute of the upcoming cooperative that is aimed at legalising
their activity after their first anniversary of workers'
self-management, they recognise the figure of the “solidarity
supporter”. This is any member of the wider community that commits
themselves to consuming a certain amount of products of the factory,
and in exchange has the right to have first hand information about
the struggle, participate in workers' assemblies, and help in
decision making through an advisory vote. A bridge is thus built
between workers' and social control of production.
Apart
from an exchange of ideas and experiences, many concrete projects
were set in motion in this first European meeting as well. Workers,
activists, academics and supporters initiated campaigns of promotion of
the products of self-managed factories, agreed on direct exchange of goods between
factories, put in place instruments of networking and collective
decision making, and elaborated projects that advance theoretical
understanding of self-management and promote popular understanding of
the issues surrounding it, such as the web page workerscontrol.net, a multilingual resource dedicated to the study and promotion of self-managed workplaces. There was even mention of a solidarity
fund created out of any surpluses that the occupied factories might
have, which will provide funding for new endeavours and will thus
help cut the ties with the capitalist financial system.
When
it comes to creating a humane economic activity based on equality and
solidarity, there are no predefined rules. The workers' imagination and
their will to struggle for a better world are the only limits. The
“Workers' economy” event at Fralib was inspiring and empowering
for everyone involved, and it might well have sparked the creation
of a Europe-wide movement of occupation of the means of production
and of workers' self-management.