ARGENTINA: Eviction of Workers Creates Tension Ahead of Elections

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 22 2003 (IPS) - Police used tear gas, rubber bullets and batons to evict workers who had formed a cooperative and got the bankrupt Brukman textile factory running again after it was abandoned by its owners in late 2001, creating a tense climate in the Argentine capital ahead of Sunday’s presidential elections.

Some 20 protesters remained under arrest Tuesday after police and demonstrators clashed outside a factory in the Argentine capital Monday, creating a tense climate ahead of next Sunday’s presidential elections.

An estimated 28 people were injured Monday when riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and batons to enforce a court order for the eviction of the Brukman textile factory workers, who formed a cooperative and got the bankrupt company going again after it was abandoned by its owners in late 2001.

Last Friday, police forcibly evicted the 57 workers, mainly women, who were running the factory, and a heavy police guard was posted around the building to keep them from reentering.

But the members of the cooperative, who are backed by left-wing political forces, associations of unemployed workers, human rights groups and community organisations, decided to re-occupy the factory on Monday.

Many of the estimated 5,000 protesters who gathered outside the factory in solidarity with the workers Monday fled into the University of Buenos Aires psychology faculty building and the Garraham children’s hospital, which are near the company. Police tossed tear gas cylinders into the buildings and tried to force their way in after the demonstrators.

Around 100 people were arrested, although most were released in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Protesters were planning another demonstration at 20:00 local time Tuesday.

Several vehicles, among them a police car, were set alight in the tumult. A number of people were hospitalised as a result of their injuries, including a police officer.

Buenos Aires Mayor Anibal Ibarra and Labour Minister Graciela Camaño said they were surprised that the street violence broke out just as efforts were underway to negotiate a solution to the legal dispute between the Brukman factory workers and owners.

Journalist Miguel Bonasso, one of the protesters who were detained, said the first person to knock down part of the mobile barrier cordoning off the factory was an unidentified man, who might have been a provocateur. Only then did the female workers follow in the attempt to enter the building.

He said that his sources told him that the current secretary of intelligence, Miguel Angel Toma, had been offered a post in the next government if former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) wins the elections.

Analysts say Menem stands to benefit most from a climate of unrest and violence, due to his promises to go tough on crime and to put an end to the frequent demonstrations and roadblocks staged by the unemployed movement, by calling out the army if necessary.

It was reported Tuesday that the president of the Association of Foreign Correspondents, Edgardo Esteban, who works for the local TV newscast Telemundo, was forced by the police to kneel down at gunpoint for 20 minutes before he was taken into custody during Monday’s disturbances.

Meanwhile, employees and directors of the Garraham children’s hospital expressed their indignation at the attempt by riot police to chase protesters into the building.

”We have children here with pneumonia who now have headaches and are vomiting since the police forced their way into the hospital,” said a nurse, adding that the excessive use of force by the police should be denounced before international human rights organisations.

”The repression was extremely harsh and could have been avoided, but there was clearly an official decision to intimidate the workers with a huge security operation that exceeded what would be the normal enforcement of a court order,” said the Brukman workers’ laywer Miriam Breckman.

The Brukman factory was occupied by its workers in December 2001, after its owners fled, owing nearly six months in back wages and other debts.

The employees formed a cooperative, and got the plant running again. Although they were expelled twice on court orders, they were allowed back in each time by legal action.

Brukman is just one example of a movement that began in late 1998, at the start of a hard-hitting recession that culminated in outright economic collapse three years later.

More than 150 cooperatives have taken over businesses that were driven under by the economic meltdown, and in many cases literally abandoned by their owners.

The businesses involved range from food products companies to metallurgical, chemical and car parts factories, transport companies and printing presses.

The general pattern is that the owners of a teetering business stop paying wages for several months before declaring bankruptcy or suddenly leaving the country and fleeing their debts.

The employees, with no money and no hope of obtaining the back wages they are owed, take over the business and seek permission from the courts to set themselves up as a cooperative.

The movement really began to grow after the crisis peaked in late December 2001, when rioting, looting and protests toppled two governments in less than two weeks and the country defaulted on its bulky foreign debt.

According to official figures, 57 percent of the population of this once-rich Southern Cone country, Latin America’s third-largest economy, has fallen into poverty, and unemployment has soared to over 21 percent.

Most of the cooperatives forming part of the National Movement of Recuperated Companies have peacefully occupied the businesses where their members had been employed, and have sought and secured legal permission to continue running the factories.

They are now operating normally, paying off the debts incurred by the previous owners, expanding the payroll, and in some cases even increasing wages.

The workers and the former owners generally agree to an arrangement for the cooperative to rent the building and gradually pay off the machinery and equipment. In some cases, the owners even form a partnership with their former employees.

But at times, the relationship between the cooperative and the owners becomes stormy, legal action is taken, the police are sent in, and it becomes difficult for the company to operate normally again and regain the confidence of its clients.

Brukman is a high-profile case of companies that remain the object of legal battles.

The owners of the factory simply disappeared in December 2001. But they had failed to pay full wages since 1995. In the second half of 2001, things took a turn for the worse in Brukman, as in the rest of the country, and the weekly paychecks, which had already dropped from 100 to 50 pesos (on par with the dollar at the time), shrunk to just five pesos.

On Dec. 14, 2001, the owners paid their employees two pesos, and laid everyone off.

A number of the workers decided to occupy the factory, assuming that the three owners would try to remove the equipment the next day. But none of them showed up.

Then began the several days of looting and rioting that forced then-president Fernando de la Rúa to resign on Dec. 20, and the workers decided to stay on in the factory.

The owners never showed up or responded to telephone calls by the Labour Ministry. So around half of the workers who occupied the factory over the Christmas holidays and through the month of January 2002 decided to get the company, which manufactures men’s clothing, running again.

They paid off unpaid utility bills and other debts, purchased materials, and distributed whatever was left over from the clothing sales among themselves. Although they barely scraped by, they were happy to have a job.

The first eviction, in 2002, took everyone by surprise because the occupation of the factory had been peaceful, and the owners had not set forth any demands – indeed, had not even showed up when summoned by the Labour Ministry to discuss the situation.

The weekly community assembly held in the Once neighbourhood, where the factory is located, has given the workers strong support, including food.

One of the cooperative movement’s big success stories is the Frigorífico Yaguané meat-packing plant, in the province of Buenos Aires. In 1996, it was abandoned by its owners as bankruptcy loomed. The workers moved into the factory, found clients, paid off the debts and got the company back on its feet again in 1998.

Since then, Yaguané has become the leading cold-storage plant in Argentina, which is one of the world’s biggest producers of beef.