Description
Book SynopsisIn Workers’ Self-Management in Argentina, Marcelo Vieta homes in on the history, consolidation, and socio-political dimensions of Argentina’s empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores (worker-recuperated enterprises), a worker-led company occupation movement that has surged since the turn-of-the-millennium and the country’s neo-liberal crisis.
Trade Review“This tome is certainly a valuable contribution to any scholar of workplace democracy and organizational democracy; yet also for practitioners or students of the international cooperative movement, working class history buffs and those searching for theoretical and practical examples of a post-capitalist imaginary that seeks to move beyond a system of wage labor and to a notion of social solidarity. Workers’ Self-Management in Argentina is a welcome addition to the – surprisingly sparse – empirical discourse on self-management and economic democracy. This is the most detailed analysis of the recent experiences in Argentina that this reviewer has encountered (there is a larger literature in Spanish).” – Jerome Warren, in: Marx and Philosophy Review of Books [Full review] "Workers’ self-management in Argentina provides a powerful contribution to literature surrounding labour movements, democracy in the context of industrial relations, and resistance to neoliberalism in the organisational environment. I would recommend the book to scholars in any of these relative disciplines. Furthermore, Vieta provides a key example of the way that ethnography and qualitative study particular in the field of industrial relations can bring the experiences of workers to the forefront of knowledge production in a way beneficial to wider elements of the discipline." – Catherine Spellman, in: British Journal of Industrial Relations [Full review] "Marcelo Vieta’s recent Workers’ Self-Management in Argentina is the first comprehensive English-language review of “the largest movement in the world of worker-led conversions of capitalist businesses into cooperatives” (p. xv). [...] The book is a welcome contribution to the study of the phenomenon of workplace democracy that should interest a wide range of readers. In fact, it is actually quite unfair to call this book Workers’ Self-Management in Argentina, as its scope is far broader than reviewing this concept in the context of Argentina. In fact, Marcelo Vieta has written two books with this entry: firstly, an analysis of Marxist and other socialist theories on worker-self management, and secondly, an application of this theoretical lens to the Argentine case, with a social history of Argentina thrown in for good measure. There is ultimately something for everyone in this book." – Jerome Warren, in: British Journal of Industrial Relations [Full review]
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations and Acronyms Glossary of Spanish and Other Foreign Terms and Phrases Preface Introduction PART 1 The Emergence of Argentina’s Empresas Recuperadas por sus Trabajadores: From Workers’ Lived Experiences of Crisis to Autogestión 1. ‘Destiny in Our Own Hands’: Three Stories of Workplace Recuperations Cooperativa de Trabajo Chilavert Artes Gráficas Cooperativa de Trabajo ‘Unión Solidaria de Trabajadores’ Cooperativa de Trabajo de la Salud Junín Mobilising Direct Action Strategies and Workplace Solidarity 2. Empresas Recuparadas pos sus Trabajadores: Why, Where, What, and How Section 1: The Emergence of Argentina’s Empresas Recuperadas (with Andrés Ruggeri) Section 2: ERT Types and Experiences of Workplace Conversions Around the World The Emergence and Characteristics of Empresas Recuperadas: A Summation 3. The Political Economy of Argentina’s Working Class: Historical Underpinnings of the Empresas Recuperadas Section 1: The Rise and Consolidation of Argentina’s Working Class (1900–89) Section 2: Argentina’s Neo-liberal Turn and the After-effects of Socio-Economic Crisis (1990–2016) Section 3: Working-Class Recomposition and New Forms of Self-Managed Workers’ Organisations (2001–17) ERTs and the Political Economy of the Working Class in Argentina: A Summation PART 2 Theorising and Historicising Autogestión Chapter 4 The Stream of Self-Determination: Freedom, Cooperation, and the Recuperations of Living Labour Section 1: The Stream of Self-Determination and Modern Socialist Thought Section 2: Critical Theories of Labour and Capitalist Technology Section 3: ERTs’ Six Recuperative Moments Cooperative Self-Determination, Recuperation, and Argentina’s ERTs: Looking Forward 5. A Genealogy of Autogestión Section 1: Autogestión and the Self-Determination of Productive Life Section 2: Cooperatives, the Social and Solidarity Economy, and Autogestión Autogestión and the Continuing Stream of Self-Determination PART 3 The Consolidation of Argentina’s Empresas Recuperadas: Common Experiences, Challenges, and Social Transformations Chapter 6. ‘Occupy, Resist, Produce’: Commonalities in the Lived Experiences of Recuperating Workplaces in Argentina (with Andrés Ruggeri) Section 1: From Workplace Conflicts to Autogestión Section 2: The Strategies and Tactics of ‘Occupy, Resist, Produce’ Re-appropriating Relevant Laws, Deploying Cooperative Values 7. The Challenges of Autogestión and ERT Workers’ Responses Section 1: Production Challenges Section 2: An Ambivalent Relationship with the State Section 3: Local and Transnational Solidarity Networks of Autogestión Organising Between ERTs and the Community to Collectively Overcome Challenges 8. Recuperating the Labour Process, Transforming Subjectivities: From Empleados to Compañeros and Trabajadores Autogestionados Section 1: Cooperatively Working and Democratising the Shop Section 2: Recuperating Cooperative Skills and Values, Informal Shop Floor Learning, and Transformed Subjectivities Section 3: Recuperating Social Production for Social Wealth Challenging ERTs’ ‘Dual Reality’ PART 4 Recuperating Autogestión 9. Recuperating Autogestión, Prefiguring Alternatives: Some Possible Conclusions On Workers’ Recuperations of Autogestión The Conjunctural Realities of Argentina’s ERTs Autogestión and Argentina’s ERTs Revisiting ERTs’ ‘Dual Reality’ Revisiting ERTs’ Radical Social Innovations and Recuperative Moments Revisiting the Definition of Argentina’s Empresas Recuperadas por sus Trabajadores Closing Thoughts, Continued Openings Appendix: Formal Interviews Conducted, Meetings Attended, and Cooperatives Visited Bibliography
