Ground-breaking Potential Of Argentine Recovered Companies In Industrial And Organizational (i/o) Psychology

Abstract

This article aims at contextualizing the Argentine phenomenon defined as “recovered companies,” both from a historical and a psychological viewpoint. A short historical analysis will be proposed about Soviet experiences/debates, their resumption, and the cases of bottom-up production control/management in the international context with a special focus on the 1920s. A thorough discussion will follow on the contemporary phenomenon of Argentinian recovered companies, where the need for the traditional managerial role in organizations is thoroughly examined with respect to present literature.

Keywords:

• Organizational change
• recovered companies
• self-management

Notes

1 Landes has been one of the most important representatives in the history of economy, certainly sided at the exact opposite of his colleague Marglin’s political and philosophical positions, but so aware of the importance of his reflection to concretely favor his knowledge and due appreciation.

2 The term recovered companies is the literal translation of Empresas Recuperadas (por sus Trabajadores). This term includes, first, firms with a particular form of self-management, which have developed in Argentina after the deep economic crisis of corralito corralon (in the 2000s). In English-speaking countries, the recovered company has become a term, used by scholars worldwide to indicate many experiences of self-management, inspired by the Argentinian experiences.

3 It is note 15 of chapter 11 (Marx, 1867, p. 235).

4 Right after the revolution, Soviet managers were shocked by the chaos in factories, which increased with forced and accelerated industrialization. Injuries, anti-social acts (alcoholism, machinery sabotage, hooliganism, thefts, and other criminal conduct), but also anti-semitism and violent attitudes against women were common and widespread. Lenin himself, sure of the masses’ basic self-government abilities, had, though, defined Russian workers as “evil,” and even though he was against Taylorism and the scientific organization of labor in 1913, after the revolution he had to accept it, even as workers’ discipline, for “that scientific or progressive something one can find in there.”

5 For further information about all these themes, and particularly subjectivity in soviet factories, please refer to the Italian version of Ferrari’s chapter no. 14 (2016).

6 In 2001, the Argentinian economic recession, which had started in 1998, collapsed with almost 35% unemployed people, a serious public deficit, and a foreign debt grown quickly. On December 5, 2001, the International Monetary Fund decided not to help the country with new credits any more. Popular demonstrations were incessant. The government thus ordered the freezing of bank deposit accounts, the corralito, which prevented common citizens to withdraw from banks more than 1,000 Pesos or 1,000 US$ per month. Panic overflew. New poor (middle-class savers), historically poor, and all citizens poured into the squares. Banks, supermarkets, and shops were ransacked, and popular revolts swept over the now isolated government. At this point, various entrepreneurs and a large part of the management literally ran away abroad, leaving several “intact” companies to their employees. The institutional economic collapse got sharper with new strict monetary measures (the corralon, partially overcome just in 2003), but spontaneous repairing mechanisms had already started all over Argentina, just like the people’s concrete solidarity toward cartoneros and botelleros, very common poor figures devoted to recycling paper, glass, and other discarded but very useful material. Or the equally common practice of the asambleas barriales: real egalitarian and “horizontal” experiences of district meetings (from barrio, district in Spanish), where dramatic and cathartic outburst allowed people to re-elaborate anger as a redeeming escape from social atomization. Several ollas populares and merenderos (popular soup kitchens) devoted to the lowest were open and trueque markets appeared, where the official but now inexisting currency was replaced by fair trade or temporary and fiduciary currency. Finally, among repairing mechanisms, we would like to mention recovered companies, such as the Brukman Factory, historical symbol of reorganization in the form of self-management. Before the crisis Brukman was an important tailor-made clothing factory. Then, totally abandoned, it was first kept alive by small groups of the approximately 150 employed seamstresses, and then managed by the entire staff, who also resisted, with the help of the barrio, the police’s initial attacks. The Brukman model was one among the most followed by the large ERT movement, which was then gradually acknowledged and made institutional (on the theme and its psychological interpretation, please refer to Ferrari, Ferrari, and Venini, 2006).

7 Since 2001 the cases of Argentinian recovered companies are constantly increasing. In March 2016 no less than 367 ERT have been counted. Source: Las empresas recuperadas por los trabajadores en los comienzos del gobierno de Mauricio Macri (2016) [Workers’ Recovered Companies at the beginning of Mauricio Macri’s government], Programa Facultad Abierta [Open Faculty Program], Facultas de Filosofia y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires [Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at Buenos Aires University].

8 The last national studies have detected a difficult period for ERTs since the beginning of Macrì’s mandate in December 2015. The new government has directly attacked recovered companies, blocking the previous decrees that legalized the expropriation of some companies and increased repressive interventions against workers. Economic reforms have brought to a reduction of the domestic market ERTs rely on. The deregulation of employment has caused a decrease in salaries, which, together with galloping inflation, has given origin to a drop of consumption. Finally, the so-called tarifazo, the enormous increase of electricity, gas, and water, makes the economic situation even more complicated. Nevertheless, 25 new recovery cases have been recorded in the last 2-year period. The number of workers employed in ERTs has instead decreased. Unlike private companies, though, where a layoff wave was observed, recovered companies have chosen a general reduction of salaries, which led workers in some cases to quit the company. Source: Ruggeri (2017).

9 There are cases that are hard to classify, since workers have first occupied and then purchased the plant, as is the case for the company New Era Windows in Chicago (USA). Dita factory workers in Bosnia, instead, after the plant had closed, began a hard struggle that led to occupation, production under a self-management regime, and finally another investor’s purchase. The Itas factory in Croatia, first nationalized during the Yugoslavian government and then privatized in the 2000s, represents a self-management case similar to Argentinian recovered companies, but with mixed property (45% purchased by workers and 55% by creditors).

10 An emblematic example is represented by Argentinian ERTs Bauen and Impa, which, after almost 10 years of self-managed (although illegal from a legislative viewpoint) production, have been “legalized” by the last decree promulgated by Kirchner’s government in December 2015, which considers them a public benefit and actually formalizes its expropriation on the workers’ part.

11 Among its main activities: some low environmental impact food production with no mistreatment. There is also the library, artisans (e.g., furniture restoration, boiled wool, tapistry), coworking spaces, a cycle repair shop, a rehearsal room, clearing-out activities, and artistic productions. Artists, artisans, and other freelancers pay no rental fee, but a monthly contribution for electricity, gas, and cleaning services.

12 For a more thorough analysis on the importance of the context as far as organizatonal models are concerned, please refer to Edgar Morin’s work, and especially the chapter “Complexity and the Enterprise” in “Introduction on Complex Thinking” (1993).

13 “Relationships with my family have changed, meaning that earlier I was meticulous and worked from 6am to 2pm and from 2pm to 8pm. This is no more the case now, I get here, do my things and don’t know when I go home” (Mariarosa, female worker at Ri-Maflow).

14 In this regard, please refer to the examples of the detergent factory Vio.Me., in Thessaloniki, where workers, with self-management, have decided to produce cheaper soaps and fabric softeners, conceived for Greek families during the crisis and with no chemical additives. Fralib factory in Marseilles, after its occupation and plant start-up, has replaced chemical flavors with organic and natural products coming from a local producers’ cooperative. Last but not least, RiMaflow in Milan has passed from a production of hydraulic components for big car manufacturers to recycling and repairing various products and materials.

15 Programa Facultad Abierta [Open Faculty Program] (2016). Las empresas recuperadas por los trabajadores en los comienzos del gobierno de Mauricio Macri [Workers’ Recovered Companies at the beginning of Mauricio Macri’s government], Facultas de Filosofia y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires [Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at Buenos Aires University].

16 A definition of Social Capital proposed by Putnam (1995) is the following: “features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.”