fajn gabriel - companies in crisis workers self management

8/12/2019 FAJN Gabriel - Companies in Crisis Workers Self Management

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REVIEW

VOLUME 97 N 1/2004

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION


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ICA Committee on Co-operativeResearch (ICACCR)

A thematic committee of the International Co-operative Alliance, the ICA Committeeon Co-operative Research is made up of a network of individual researchers from overtwenty countries in Europe, Asia and America.

The Committee acts as a bridge between academic research and the co-operative worldand aims to strengthen activities and make the work of researchers morevisible. Selected papers from each conference will be published yearly in the Reviewof International Co-operation.

International Research Conferences are held every two years where possible in

conjunction with ICA global meetings (General Assembly and/or Congress) andRegional Research Conferences are held regularly and where possible in conjunctionwith ICA Regional Assemblies.

Opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of theleadership and management of the ICA.

Contents may be reprinted without permission, but citation of source is

requested and three copies of the publication concerned should be sent toICA Review, 15, route des Morillons, 1218 Grand-Saconnex, Geneva,Switzerland.


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Recovered CompaniesThe last three or four years in Argen-tina, have been the scene of intensesocial struggle, that have induced theirruption of new actors, and new origi-nal forms of unrest.

The structural conditions, the economicsituation, the unemployment, the insti-tutional weakness, and the fear thatproduced the possibility of social dis-membering, are pieces of a never seencrisis, that conform a critical scenery. Inthis context the processes of recoveredcompanies break out, expanding withunknown strength all throughout thisperiod, where we found more or less170 productive unities.The following analysis is the result of acollective social research, based on theinformation recollected from the sur-veys done to more than 85 companies,and from the in deep interviews. Thisarticle is a brief summary of a book

nowadays being published.

PeriodizationThe company take over has been a prac-tice used by the Argentinean workers inseveral moments of their history. The

political opportunity structure, the con-ditions and resources of the laborersmovement, the role played by the tradeunions heads, and the offensive strate-gies the workers carried out in that con-text, are very different from the new

protest cycle opened in these last fewyears. After the backward movementthe neoliberal politics meant for theworkers, the taking over strategy andthe recovery of the companies repre-sents a defensive strategy almost des-perate- that inserts basically in the sur-vival of the company and the main-tenance of the jobs.In the second half of the nineties, it canbe seen an increase in the protest cycleof salaried workers and unemployed

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Companies in Crisis -Workers Self Management

by Gabriel Fajn *

* Gabriel Fajn is a sociologist. He is a ResearchArea Coordinator with the Social Sciences

Department at the Cultural CooperationCentre and a Lecturer in OrganizationalSociology, Universidad de Buenos Aires,Argentia. [email protected]


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ones; and the appearance of some com-panies that are going through criticalsituations.From the year 2000, to December 2001,there occurred a rapid intensification ofthe unrest, and a significant increase inthe amount of the companies that weretaken over. Since December 2001,important modifications are shapingthe company recovery phenomenon.The recovery processes acquire morepublic visibility and social support. Agreater articulation can be seen bet-ween the companies that are recovered

or in the process of recovery, and alsoget together in different groups as waysof representation: National RecoveredCompanies Movement (MNER); NationalFederation of work co-operatives of Recon-verted Companies (FENCOOTER); thosethat demand laborer control (control ofproduction), among others. Finally thereis an appearance of new organized

social actors, such as the neighborhoodassemblies, that actively take part in thetakeovers and camping of some compa-nies; and in other cases they even get topromote and directly propose theirreappropriation.

Actors and strategies

The strategies displayedby the businessmenIt seems that the social defeat that thesalaried sectors suffered with mostintensity during the 1990s, did not onlyproduced a huge deterioration in theincome redistribution, important lossesof the historical conquests reached bythe workers, increased flexibility of theworking contract, but also as compen-sation, it got installed among the busi-nessmen the idea of moral and legal

deregulation; thus, building a kind ofimpunity habitus where many busi-nessmen disregarded the elementarymatters in the observance of the law.Only over that supposed consensus andsocial atmosphere of impunity in whichthey were inserted and a deep anomia,the whole fraudulent practices thatmany of them carried out can be under-stood.

Anyway, the businessmen did notadopt a homogeneous behavior, andstated different resolution strategiesfacing their companys crisis, and the

possibility of their closing.1. The businessmen (former owners)

did not display (did not want orcould not) fraudulent or emptinesspractices facing the cease of the com-panys activities.

2. Fraudulent bankruptcies and empty-ing out maneuvers.

Mechanisms directed to: Create new debts with fictitiouscreditors

Increase the debts already assumed,in order to negotiate and compen-sate economically a few creditorsoutside the legal scope

Do not state part of the goods andtake them out surreptitiously from

the industrial plant. Eliminate from the stocktaking pre-

vious arrangement with the trustee-part of the machinery the companyowned.

The resistancecarried out by the workersThe company recovering processbrought to light a group of novel andconfronting practices adopted by theworkers, concerning the economic crisis

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of the companies, and in the legal set-ting. Not only did they present legalstrategies through their lawyers, butalso they carried out direct actions inthis way: questioning judges, supervis-ing the stocktaking, and watching overthe machinery and goods.

From the conflictto the managementWe can say that the intensity of the con-flict was developed since the particulardynamic of each organization, and the

adopted strategy by the businessmenfaced to the crisis, and the resistancelevel that the workers opposed (forcemeasure).From the two variables force measureand duration we have constructed anew one, which we have named conflictintensity, to distinguish between thosecompanies that did not adopt any force

measure and got an immediate solution(low intensity), and those that carriedout any type of measures (companyoccupation, takeover, camping) and hada longer duration (more than a month)which we assumed of high intensity.It is possible to establish an importantrelationship between the intensity theconflict acquired in the companies, and

the management initiatives adopted bythe workers, during the first momentssince the set on of the company recov-ery processes.The collective social dynamic, pro-duced a non planned qualitative jumpthat represented going from the border-ing threat, which the closing of the com-pany supposed, to a collective manage-ment. An unthinkable breakdown inthe companys history and most of thetimes not even desired that compul-

sive and immediately integrates thesalaried, to manage their organizationsdestiny. There are no formal learnings,nor previous assessments, just the con-flict and the dispute that mediates

between the workers that had a securesocial disaffiliation path, and the newcollective role they had to assume tomanage the company.What must not be understood and ana-lyzed in a splinted way is the intensityof the dispute carried away by theworkers in each company, and the reor-ganization of the companies since the

new management practices. We greatlyconsider that the conflict level, reached,acquired, impregnated, and establishednew ways of know how in the reopen-ing of the companies. This moment willhave important effects in the con-structed ties within the workers, in thecollective practices they experimented,and in the learnings they incorporated

since the dispute; becoming therefore amovable continuity between the dis-putes depth and the characteristics ofthe new model.From a self management point of view,the reconstruction of the organizationalspace has as a prior task, that of therestructuring the capital-labor relation-

ships, that are extremely hierarchizedones, relations of obedience and submis-sion, and that in the small and mediumcompanies were generally accompaniedby an essential paternalism as dis-torted model of the management.

Self-management processesThe work to fan, this is, sale of theprocessed industrial service to clients whoprovide the raw material and take out theproduct for its marketing or later transfor-

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mations, is one of the most commonstrategies the workers carried out, tocapitalize and to balance again this sit-uation during the initial moments. Thismodality of work achieves the initialaims of preserving their jobs, restartingthe productive cycle, as well as recover-ing the clients and suppliers trust;though on the other hand, it implicatesthe reducing of the income levels, andgenerates ties of dependence with theclients - suppliers (Sancha, 2001).Consequentially, it is generally per-ceived among the workers as a tempo-

rary situation, until they can manage toobtain the raw materials.As a consequence of these initial condi-tions, the majority of the companies areworking at a lower level than that oftheir productive capacity. The results ofour study indicate that, among therecovered companies that were operat-ing, the average capacity utilization is

near to 55%, being lower than 30% inhalf of the cases.On the other hand, because of the pos-sibility of better opportunities in otherjobs, the negotiation of the retirement,and for the existence of a major solidar-

ity with the employers, there are fewcases where hierarchic and/ or profes-sional levels stayed (near 20% of thewhole of the companies in activity,descending to about 15% between thosewho passed along more intense levelsof conflict during the recovery process).Likewise and probably for similarmotives, and though slightly major,there are also few cases where adminis-trative personnel stayed (44% of thewhole companies in activity and 33% ofthose who passed along high levels ofconflict).

Though the majority of the workershave preserved their jobs, the need tocover the administrative and commer-cial positions facilitates a major rota-tion and polyvalence of the workingplaces as well as a major flexibility inthe division of tasks. Now then,concerning the remuneration criteria,about 70% of the entrepreneurs in

activity have imposed egalitarianremuneration criteria, percent thatclimbs to 85% between the companiesin which neither hierarchic, nor profes-sional, nor administrative personnelstayed.

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Hierarchich /administrative personnel Total

permanency

No (%) Yes (%)

Egalitarian 84.4 55.6 69.1

Remuneration Previous remuneration criteria 6.3 22.2 14.7

criteria By productivity (worked hs.) 6.3 8.3 7.4No data 3.1 13.9 8.8

Total 100 100 100

Table N 1 Hierarchic / administrative personnel

permanency by remuneration criteria


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Those processes where necessarilydeeper changes have been imposed in theorganization logics and in the division ofthe work, the adoption of remunerationcriteria, based mostly in considerations ofjustice distribution, than in a stratification

criteria of the working places. The egali-tarianism in the remunerative criteriaacquires, for many of these co-operativesocieties, a symbolic content in whichunity and solidarity principles areexpressed, built and learned during therecovering process.On the same way, it is common for allthese companies the adoption of assem-

bly practices, for the taking of decisions.And though this can stem from the adop-tion of the co-operative form as a legalway of functioning (adoption that corre-sponds mostly to a pragmatic criteria,than to an ideological one), in many ofthem, as a consequence of the organiza-tion and involvement of the workers dur-ing the recovery, there have taken placereal situations of greater democracy inthe taking of the decisions to the interiorof the company.That is to say, that though the adoption ofco-operative ways of organization firstlyhappen because of pragmatic or legalmotives, soon begins to generate a learn-ing process in which the formality gives

step to real situations where the democ-racy and transparency in the manage-ment of the companies, turns into astrategic center of the organization.The conflict that breaks up with the clos-ing of the companies must be understoodas the break of an agreement betweenthe workers and the employers. This sit-uation opens the path for the emergencyof new ways of entail, through an infor-mal learning process, and generallyguided by pragmatic motives. In otherwords, the success of these organizationsseems to be related to the capacity of theworkers to articulate new logics of workorganization, through the tools that theco-operative and self management orga-nization offers.In this aspect, factors such as the elimina-tion of the employers and managementcosts, greater flexibility in schedules ofwork and in remunerative levels, as wellas the decrease in the conflict and thegreater involvement of the workers in theproduction management, appear as theelements that allow these experience togo ahead. The following tables suggestthat in fact, the success of these initiativesis greater in those companies where theprocesses have been more troubled andwhere the changes have been deeper.

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Low intensity 36% Yes 40%

High intensity 70% No 70%

Total 54% Total 54%

ConflictIntensity

Production

capacity in use

Hierarchic /profesionalpersonnel

permanency

Production

capacity in use

Based on companies in activity

Table N 2 Production Capacity in use by Conflict intensityand Hierarchic Personnel permanency


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But though the exploration of thepotentials of the co-operative logics ofwork organization seems to be one ofthe factors of success of these experi-ence, the lack of the initial capital aswell as the difficulty of acceding to

credits or other forms of financing,impedes the possibility of changingthe precarious situation that charac-terizes the first stages of developmentof these companies.

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Table N 3 % of work to fan by production capacity in use

Up to 20% 53% 12 49%

21% a 50% 48% 16 48%

More than 50% 41% 11 44%

Without inf. 27% 7 46%

Total 44% 46 46%

Production capacityin use

% mean of workto fan

Cases Std. Desv.

Based on Companies in activity

PerspectivesThe workers self management of the

companies becomes a new social phe-nomenon that takes importance in theArgentinean reality, through collec-tive practices that can be understoodas expressions of this crisis, and asexplorative replies in alternative man-agement modalities.

The conformation of co-operativesand other associative ways- becomes

the most viable solution that theworkers find to this adverse situation.Thus, the collective property of theproduction means1, and the demo-cratic participation in the manage-ment are combined. The disputeprocesses are strongly related to theself management way that eachorganization has assumed. This can

be observed in the practices that havebeen carried out internally: egalitar-ian remuneration levels, collective

levels of decision, ways of representa-tion, delegation and control; assemblydynamics, etc.

The self-management processes willdemand of prolonged periods fortheir consolidation, will go throughadvances and setbacks and will beriddled with tensions and contradic-tions, though they can verify interest-ing steps in this direction where theassembly practices are outlined for

the making of strategic decisions, theamplification of the participativeframes, the constitution of delibera-tive instances and little by little thedevelopment of certain collectiveknow how of the management.

The know how of the management willbe a new and important territory of dis-pute, the collective reappropriation ofthe management from the companyand the construction of organizationalinstances (review procedures, revoca-


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bility, transparency of the information,etc.) will be the vertex of a new organi-zational model. Collective know howthat constructs a new logic of power.(Foucault, 1975)The self management of the companiesis used as a survival strategy, throughthe creation of alternatives of insertionin a globalized economy that pleadsfor the exclusion and, even it might besaid, it takes part of a social rescue ofthe subjects by themselves.

Coordinator : Fajn Gabriel

Members: Bustamante FernandoBauni NataliaCaffaratti JulietaCha NicolsDe Felice AndreaGofman CeciliaHelp CamilaZukernik Gisela

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tigacin: diez interrogantes a nivel empresario. Bilbao, 1994.

Notas de diarios referidos a la temtica.

PRONATASS, Cooperativas de Trabajo. Algunos elementos para su anlisis. Bs.As. Ministerio de Economa y Obras Servicios Pblicos, 1994.

Quirs, G y Saravi, G. La informalidad econmica : ensayo de antropologa urbana.Bs. As. Centro Editor de Amrica Latina, 1994

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Roggi, Cecilia. La construccin de un espacio social : el caso del cooperativismo detrabajo en la provincia de Bs. As. Buenos Aires, CEST/U.B.A, 2001

Sancha, Jos F. Recuperacin de fuentes de trabajo a partir de la autogestinde los trabajadores. Revista Realidad Econmica n*173. marzo 2001

Sennett, R. La Corrosin del carcter: las consecuencias personales del trabajo en

el nuevo capitalismo. Barcelona, Anagrama,1998 Vuotto, M. El desempeo organizacional del cooperativismo de trabajo. Bs. As.CEDES, 2000

Note1 Guaranteed by expropriation laws that contemplate the machinery and real

estate availability for the period of two years, and that have been enacted bythe municipal and provincial governments throughout 2002.

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fajn gabriel - companies in crisis workers self management

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