Zanon: under workers control (2005)

Our history
2000

The [Zanon] company announced that it had operational and commercial difficulties. Two years earlier, the workers had taken back control of the shop stewards’ committee at the [tile] factory [in Neuquén], although the provincial trade union remained in the hands of the bureaucracy.
One of the workers, 22-year-old Daniel Ferrás, was taken ill while working in the plant. The company did not have the necessary health facilities and Daniel died on his way to hospital.
We took to the streets for the first time demanding adequate health facilities. A joint commission of workers and company representatives was set up in order to ensure that proper safety regulations were observed.

2001

March 8. The government of the province of Neuquén bought US$ 450,000 worth of ceramics so that the company could pay back salaries.
May. The company was still in arrears – workers were owed three months’ wages.
After a 34-day strike, the provincial government stepped in to help the company pay the salaries and stop redundancies.
September. The government gave a further US$ 500,000 to pay salaries, but on the 31st, the company decided to lay off the workforce, arguing that there was a shortage of raw materials. It went on to cut transport and infirmary benefits, and then, claiming that it could no longer afford to pay salaries, turned the industrial ovens off. At this point the local court ruled against the lock-out of the workforce, signifying that the owners had committed an illegal act. The court also decided to seize 40% of the stock, to be sold in order to pay salaries.
There were five months of resistance during which we camped outside the factory gates.

“The stock of tiles lasted almost three months. We spent all of our time standing outside the factory selling it, but our problems hadn’t gone away. We looked at the factory and thought, if selling these tiles is profitable, why don’t we take over the factory and restart production? Let’s buy raw materials, produce tiles, and carry on selling them – after all, we have to make a living even if the situation is not resolved. What do we do when the stock runs out?”

In October the company decided to close down and sent us telegrams saying that we were sacked because the factory was not making the expected profits. We decided to reject the dismissals and burnt the telegrams in front of the Provincial Government House. After a few days – strengthened by the court ruling against the bosses – we started to discuss how to reactivate the factory.
The Zanon owners held a meeting of creditors. We made our first donation of tiles to the local hospital. Unemployed workers from the MTD (Movement of Unemployed Workers) of Neuquén donated their labour to refurbish part of the hospital.

2002

In January, the company presented its own project to reactivate the factory, which envisaged only 62 workers, a reduction of salaries and a flexible workforce. We started to discuss the taking over of the factory under workers’ control. Two days later we resolved that every worker would receive the same salary and that there would be committees to deal with sales, administration, security, purchasing, production, planning, health and safety, and publicity.
March 2. The workers restarted production, now under workers’ control.
The Mapuche community allowed us to use clay from the quarries on its land for the production of ceramics.

In April the first issue of Nuestra Lucha (Our Struggle) – a newspaper of the occupied factories and workers in struggle – was published. We then launched a radio programme and a website.
April 5. The first production run of 20,000 square metres of ceramics was completed. A framework agreement between the National University of Comahue (UNC) and the Zanon workers was signed, in which the University Council recognised and supported the project of nationalisation under workers’ control of the Zanon factory, and agreed to continue assisting in the process of restoring production, but under workers’ control, by giving technical advice and institutional support.

June 16. With the support of UNC and the University of Buenos Aires, we presented our “Project for a Transitional Workers’ Administration” to the court. The judge did not contest it.
In August, the first genuine new posts – ten of them – were created, and given to members of unemployed workers’ organisations.
On October 17, a bill calling for the expropriation and nationalisation of the Zanon factory was presented to the provincial parliament on our behalf. This initiative was devised jointly with UNC technical staff.
November. Delegates from the factory went on their first international tour – to Italy, France and Britain – financed by workers’ organisations in Europe. Future tours would include Brazil, Venezuela, Chile and Spain. We signed an agreement with the ‘People’s University’ set up by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

2003

In February, a further 30 jobs were created.
April 8 was the date set for a new eviction attempt. The auditors arrived in Neuquén but were prevented from entering the factory by a demonstration of more than 3,000 people. “Zanon belongs to the people” had become more than a mere slogan.
This was the third eviction attempt that had been frustrated.
Fifty thousand signatures backing the bill calling for the expropriation and nationalisation of the Zanon factory were collected.
By June we were producing more than 120,000 square metres of ceramics per month. This was 15 per cent of the plant’s total capacity and 50 per cent of the output which had been achieved by the owners before they abandoned the factory.
On November 25, police mounted a ferocious attack on the working class neighbourhood of San Lorenzo, injuring 30 people – nine of whom were hit by live ammunition. In the fusillade, Pepe Alvear, a Zanon worker and member of the unemployed movement, lost an eye.

Quality control

In the first few months of production under workers’ control we began to make quality controls. However, this concept changed in comparison to what had happened in the company previously. We have a parameter: a value reference for each model and the objective is to maintain that in each stage of the process: from the clay, the pressing, the decorators, the oven, until the selection, which is a guiding tool for the worker.

It is a demanding control; if there is a problem we discuss it amongst all of us in order to find a solution because we are the workers who are in contact with the material and who know the operations of the machines. …
Our proposition is to demonstrate that the worker can produce without an employer and therefore we are demanding with our product, which is our public face with the client. Before, all that mattered was to arrive at work, complete the labour required of us and receive our salary at the end of the month. Now, this has changed…

Maintenance

“With this effort we guarantee the continuity of the factory’s production and direct its utility to serve the community”

Perhaps for some people this doesn’t mean much but for the ceramic workers, the maintenance of the factory is crucial. During the last 8 years, no real maintenance was conducted due to the politics implemented by the Zanon family during the dismantling of the factory. Later, when we initiated workers’ control of the factory in 2000, we had to begin from zero in order to revive production. From 2004, the production improved considerably reaching sustained monthly production rates of 300,000 metres in the last semester. This was possible thanks to work realised by coordinating workers combined with a group led by the economist Pablo Levin of the UBA, who addressed the issue of planning. Thanks to the effort of the workers and the community throughout these last three years of management, we have been able to invest nearly a million pesos per worker in the maintenance of the factory without having to reduce the salaries of the 450 employees.

We changed the statute of the trade union.

After 2 months of debates and assemblies, we the ceramists voted in favour of modifying the statute of the tiles trade union. The modifications were made according to the militant practice of this struggle: to shorten the unionist posts, to promote a rotation of tasks and responsibilities, and to increase the number of delegates per factory, amongst others.
Thanks to the modification of the statute, we vindicate our trade union as a working class one, independent from the owners, the trade union’s bureaucracy and the state. We are also reinforcing our working method based on direct democracy, which we practice in the workers’ assemblies.
We started the trade union in 2000 and today it is a small, big trade union, which has had hard struggles in its 4 tile factories: Cerámicas Zanon, Cerámica del Valle, Cerámica Stefani de Cutral Co y recently Cerámica Neuquen.
The members of the Lista Marrón (Brown List), who initiated this militant force that was born in Zanon and then spread to the other factories, have voted in open assembly the workers who will integrate this new Steering Group. Within our political programme, we suggested the rotation of tasks until each of the leaders returns to his/her work place. The magnitude of the political struggle paved the way to the fact that in different assemblies the workers chose the continuity of some leaders and, at the same time, the rotation of other posts to incorporate new workers.
However, we maintained the spirit of rotation, because we already have many examples of trade union leaders (workers), who don’t want to leave their posts and become bureaucratic. In the long term, these leaders end up serving the system that exploits and attacks the workers.
Now, the posts of the members of the Steering Group is for 3 years, since with Reform of the statute the periods were shortened from 4 years.

When you buy a FaSinPAt’s product (acronym for “factories without owners”), you are helping us to carry out projects like this:

The factory at the service of the community. During 2004, workers of Zanon, in agreement with the neighbours, built this Health Centre in the neighbourhood called Nueva España, which is located 8 km from the capital Neuquén. 400 families live there, who for the last 40 years have demanded the provincial government to provide primary care.
We, workers of Zanon want to tell you about what we produce. We want you to know that behind each tile there is a story and a reality that make possible that things go round.
FaSinPat means factory without owners. This means that the entire process and all the decisions are in the hands of the workers. We decide what to buy, how to sell, what and how to produce. Once we analyse the demands and the different situations, we all decide about the best ways to help the community.
Behind the term FaSinPat lies the struggle of dozens of families of the ex-Zanon workers. This struggle began much earlier than the take of the factory in March 2002, when we started producing.
For us, it has been a great challenge and it s a constant learning process. It is an indelible experience, because it is about dignity, it is about work.
We understand that this factory is a cog, where each of us contributes a little, where there are no hierarchies and where the commitment and responsibility with the job determine the quality of the product and the future of the factory.
Today, thanks to the trust, solidarity and support of the community and other organizations in struggle, we can produce and live with dignity. We would like to show you the background of the tile we produce: our experience as people and as an organization.
In order to accomplish a workers’ management, we have been enduring threats and hardships for years; but during the first months in 2005 violence has escalated to the point of reaching physical violence: now they attack our families.
Without a political strategy from the government, the sectors of power and the businessmen don’t give up so easily, and they use the same mechanisms used by the dictatorship to try to break us. They are playing dirty. The political responsibility of what is happening to us today, to our families, belongs to the government of Neuquen.

3 years of self-management: the solution is political

This is the way we work. We pay the bills; we sell to the public and to warehouses all over the country; we increased production and jobs; we collaborate with the community. In this way we show that things can be done differently: they can be done in the right way.
It is clear that this is possible, because, under workers’ management, not only a few take the income. Here, income is distributed with the people.
We say the ceramic factory works. This is our way to make justice: beginning with work and redistribution. However, the Justice system works with other laws, and these laws are not made by the people. The successive modifications of the bankruptcy law allow businessman – like those of Zanon – to have access to the factory again, to buy it and then close it a month or a year later. It also makes the workers pay the debts that the former owners didn’t pay, because they took the money out of the country.

Laws don’t make justice

That is why we prefer to talk about legitimacy and we say that the solution for Zanon is political. There are many, many interests at stake; it is a constant ‘up and down’ because of certain political decisions. As with health, education, the justice system… solutions are found according to particular sets of priorities and interests: Whom do we want to offer answers?, Whom do we want to treat favourably?, Which are more valuable? And according to whom?
Hence, when we talk about politics, we talk about struggle: these are our weapons and these are our concrete actions and proposals. We have seen many times how the justice system and police defend those hiding behind the ‘right to private property’ and who at the same time bankrupt companies, cheat the State, and play with the futures of hundreds of families.
This is why we are not alone, because there are so many people who do not obtain any satisfactory answers, and there are so many things that don’t work because of negligence and particular interests of a small minority. The links between different organisations make us stronger along the road, pointing us in the right direction.
Some time had passed until we came to understand that in order to live in society, it is necessary to change our points of view, and that we had to be committed. We had to counter a very strong culture, one that says, ‘don’t get involved’, while on the other side reigns the “divide and rule”.
Our enterprise has been in operation now for more than three years, and yet, we have not been given any solution. It is important that our cooperative FaSinPat is recognized. We are convinced that every day that passes without a solution to the workers’ demands, this is time the provincial government uses to threaten the workers’ enterprise: intimidation, telephone threats … Violence is constant; that is their way of doing politics.
Until now, the backing from the wider community has been crucial to stop us, the workers, from being evicted from the factory, thus enabling us to continue to produce.
We, the workers, have offered solutions to this conflict; such as the creation of the cooperative or the proposal for nationalisation. Each such proposal was always debated and passed by vote in assembly.

Workers’ control is consolidated in 2004.

People came from different parts of the world to get to know the factory without bosses. The experience is taken on board by other sectors in struggle, as the community recognizes, supports and trusts the workers’ undertaking. We have worked very hard to strengthen the links and relations with the wider community.
This experience has not been easy: there are no recipes nor theories, we learn through trial and error with the aim that this example serves others.
Donations: Every month we receive in the factory hundreds of requests from the community to help with concrete necessities. Hospitals, schools, community food kitchens, libraries, families below the poverty line, health centres, leisure centres; from diverse corners of the province people look to the workers’ enterprise. For us, this is one of the ways in which we build community support.
Security and hygiene: in relation to the norms established by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The last three years of managerial running of the company were compared with the years of workers’ control. There were some 300 accidents per year (half of which were severe) and on average one fatality per year; since workers’ control of the factory, only 33 accidents were registered (none severe and there have been no fatalities).
Concerts: Eight thousand people support the ceramist’s organisation and participated in the open-air concert by Ataque 77 in the factory grounds, a concert without police and without any problems.
Production growth: We began with the production of 15 thousand square metres of ceramics and today we produce 300 thousand, projecting 400 thousand for this year.
Almanac for Emanuel: this is another way which involves us closely with the community: recognizing the diverse issues that matter to the population, and also, identifying with the celebrations and anniversaries. Videos: since the very first days, the ceramists’ struggle has been registered in images, and from diverse perspectives. Today there exist four productions of documentaries reflecting this struggle: “Kino, nuestra lucha”, “Mate y Arcilla”, “Fasinpat”, and “The Take”. These videos are commercially unattainable. Medical team: we have got a 24-hour infirmary, an ambulance service, and life insurance. With the objective to give continuity to the dissemination of our experience, last November we sat up a tent in Buenos Aires (Capital of Argentina). We camped outside the Congress house during 9 days and presented a Project of Expropriation for all workers’ run factories in the country.
School visits: Each week, students and teachers from schools and colleges in Neuquén, Centenario y Plottier, amongst others, come to the factory to learn how we advance with the workers’ control.
Media and dissemination: a radio program, a newspaper, and website. In November 2002 we set up a radio program called ‘Nuestra Lucha’ (Our Struggle). From then on, we have been transmitting by radio every Saturday at 4p.m. through radio Universidad Calf (103.7) The newspaper Nuestra Lucha (Our Struggle) is published nationally and initially it was jointly produced with the comrades from the MTD Neuquén (Unemployed Workers Movement).
The objective is to inform other workers (employed and unemployed) in the country about our experience of our struggle against exploitation and unemployment.
Yet another tool of communication with the community is through our website: http://www.obrerosdezanon.org/

ZANON UNDER WORKERS’ CONTROL, February 2005
Translated by members of the UK Argentine Solidarity Campaign