By Lucy Taylor

Read full article at Bulletin of Latin American Research

(…) Despite such critiques, many people in many ways are becoming more like citizens. They are more certain of their value as individuals in relation to others who are richer and more powerful, and they are better aware of their rights (because the struggle for democracy and the practice of democratisation has made them so) (Taylor, 2003). They are more likely to think in terms of rights, both because international organisations are promoting a discourse of rights, and because neo-liberalism sees the recourse to rights as being the chief protection mechanism for sovereign consumers. The biggest growth area in social organisation is consumer groups (closely followed by neighbourhood improvement schemes) and NGOs flourish in the privatised world of social policy (Jelin and Herschberg, 1996). Yet this trend towards a strengthening of citizenship has not resulted in the Latin American democracies, states and citizens becoming deeper, more coherent or more equal. Indeed, the key trend of the last 10 years has been the resurgence of populism and the return of the familiar political messiah. This seems to present a conundrum – how can people feel more like citizens but act more like clients?

Having considered the nature of the relationship between political leader and people, three key reasons why citizenship is failing strike me. Firstly, neo-liberalism has changed both abstract thinking and government policies regarding poverty. The concept of ‘privatisation’ is central to neo-liberal citizenship, whereby power (and indeed freedom) is equated with personal, individualised agency articulated through private, social and voluntary interactions (with friends, neighbours, charities for example) or through legal or economic transactions (exercising one’s civil rights or buying and selling in the market). Privatisation is a policy which seeks to shift tasks and power from the realm of the state into the ‘private’ realm of individual and market. Within this schema, both populist social justice and citizenship welfare rights are dismissed by the neo-liberal philosophy because their deliberate redistribution of wealth punishes those who (by dint of their talents) have accumulated wealth, as well as interfering with market forces. Social justice is misguided because it is determined by political considerations, not the market, and welfare rights are judged to be not rights at all because they require purposeful intervention, unlike negative rights (civil and political) which merely establish mechanisms. Of course, pure neo-liberalism has not been enacted in Latin America, but the consequences of freeing market forces and cutting public services have been impoverishment, unemployment, worse social indicators (malnutrition, infant deaths, disease) and insecurity. In tune with privatisation, NGOs – by definition private entities – have stepped into the social service breech but their assistance is based on specific projects which cover a certain time and place (Gideon, 1998). They do not contemplate universal coverage nor is their continuation guaranteed and so in no sense do they sustain social rights, despite their genuine commitment to improving people’s lives. Citizenship has changed dramatically, then, because it has lost welfare rights, a key component which sought to redress inequalities in the exercise of civil and political rights. With impoverishment and without welfare rights, people’s capacity to exercise their remaining rights has therefore been severely curbed.

Secondly, while it is undoubtedly preferable to operate under conditions of liberal democracy, the liberal historicist understanding of inequality, with its blindness to structures of discrimination and disdain, has been heightened by its more extreme characterisation as neo-liberalism. Public discourse sustains the myth of equal rights through recourse to privatisation which places responsiblity for social and class inequalities in the hands of the individual, in the private, social sphere and outside the realm of politics. Yet the ‘level playing field’ which exists on paper is distorted by the very uneven terrain of familiar assumptions about civilisation and degeneracy, about progress and backwardness, about rationality and perception, and about who should follow whom, who should adopt whose lifestyles, who is right and who must learn. The fact that this heightened inequality is part of lived experience also means that the sham of equal citizenship is similarly blatant and it makes a constant mockery of democratic ideals.

Thirdly, the primary vehicles of democratic political participation – parties – persist in maintaining intellectual hierarchies of disdain, whether they reflect biological or historicist explanations of inequality (Taylor, 2003). They continue to act as vanguards even though people have largely ceased to follow them and to take themselves, rather than citizens, very seriously. Parties generally discourage the kind of active participation which they achieved in the past by simultaneously misinterpreting, over-ruling and underestimating their potential supporters. There are some notable exceptions, including the Partido dos Trabalhadores in Brazil and the Partido por la Democracia in Chile, both of which have strong links to civil society and were formed during, not before, the transitions to democracy. Yet more generally, parties are no longer the sole means of political communication and action, and those people in society who wish to change the world or think new thoughts now join social organisations instead which often lead public debate and leave the parties to play catch-up behind. This leaves parties both outmoded and without the kind of internal dissent which challenges policy and holds dominant factions to account, which in turn undermines pluralism within these central
agencies of democratic life. The paradox is that despite their decreasing relevance to people’s lives and their lack of representativity, they continue to hold power in government and actually continue to wield immense power, despite globalisation. This presents a crisis of political citizenship because the official channels are both unresponsive and mistrusted, whilst the channels of civil society are ultimately very limited in their capacity to change macro-political projects such as structural adjustment or social policy.

One of the other reasons why conventional citizenship politics is in crisis is because such parties do not guarantee anything in return for the people’s vote – client-ship on the other hand, offers a great deal more and this perhaps explains why neo-populism has proved to be popular (for a time and in certain places). In particular, it proffers two comforts (familiarity and the hope of tangible improvement in one’s personal life) and one bonus (the possible pleasure of exercising a little power). Client-ship is one of the familiar pathways of Latin American political culture. It locks into a sense of belonging and identity which reaches deep into the struggles of daily life; it is about personalities and families, favours and favourites, admiration, emotion and a business deal (Auyero, 2001). As such, it treats people seriously and touches people’s emotional and material lives more closely and effectively than a more distanced, citizenship-style politics does. Secondly, support for a patronage-style party via its local representative increases the chance that some small improvement will occur in people’s lives – this, after all, is the nature of the political relationship which couples charisma with the votes-for-goods deal. Indeed, the poverty of structural adjustment and collapse of state services makes this mechanism even more vital as people seek protection in the ‘private’ world of NGOs, churches and political patronage (Gideon, 1998; Auyero, 2001). A party that does not operate patronage, in contrast, can more easily ignore its individual constituents because it gives no personal guarantees to citizens who have serious needs. Finally, just like citizenship, client-ship also appeals to people’s desire for agency because it encourages and even demands participation in the circus of mobilisations and fiestas that accompany elections. People recognise the limitations of the performance but they enjoy exercising their limited power and look forward to the possible rewards which this political ‘work’ might yield (Lazar, 2003). Political work in citizen-style politics is equally exciting, of course, but given that people are short on time and very short on money, only the most dedicated militantes will turn out to wave a flag in the plaza ‘for nothing’.

We should not rejoice in the flourishing of patronage politics and client-ship, though. Neo-populism is, of course, characterised by autocracy, corruption and violence. It cares little for the plight of the poor, merely throwing them scraps of hope – children’s milk, subsidised seeds, a clinic here, some school chairs there. It tramples over rights, ignores representation and makes arbitrary decisions, and it allows favoured cronies to become very rich by privatising and syphoning off what little the impoverished state has (O’Donnell, 1994). Neo-populism and its attendant client-ship is not a solution to problems of representation, participation and accountability, but for many people it appears to be a better short term strategy than voting for a ‘conventional’ politician who seems neither to understand nor to respect them but who performs a disingenuous pantomime six months before the election.

Unless and until citizenship can provide meaningful participation it will continue to be over-shadowed by client-ship, because the fact that inequality is built-into the patron/client relationship matters little in a social world where the equality of citizenship is a laughable myth. (…)

By Noam Chomsky

The United States was founded as an “infant empire,” in the words of George Washington. The conquest of the national territory was a grand imperial venture. From the earliest days, control over the hemisphere was a critical goal.

Latin America has retained its primacy in U.S. global planning. If the United States cannot control Latin America, it cannot expect “to achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world,” observed President Richard M. Nixon’s National Security Council in 1971, when Washington was considering the overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government in Chile.

Recently the hemisphere problem has intensified. South America has moved toward integration, a prerequisite for independence; has broadened international ties; and has addressed internal disorders—foremost, the traditional rule of a rich Europeanized minority over a sea of misery and suffering.

The problem came to a head a year ago in Bolivia, South America’s poorest country, where, in 2005, the indigenous majority elected a president from its own ranks, Evo Morales.

In August 2008, after Morales’ victory in a recall referendum, the opposition of U.S.-backed elites turned violent, leading to the massacre of as many as 30 government supporters.

In response, the newly-formed Union of South American Republics (UNASUR) called a summit meeting. Participants—all the countries of South America—declared “their full and firm support for the constitutional government of President Evo Morales, whose mandate was ratified by a big majority.”

“For the first time in South America’s history, the countries of our region are deciding how to resolve our problems, without the presence of the United States,” Morales observed.

Another manifestation: Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa has vowed to terminate Washington’s use of the Manta military base, the last such base open to the United States in South America.

In July, the U.S. and Colombia concluded a secret deal to permit the United States to use seven military bases in Colombia.

The official purpose is to counter narcotics trafficking and terrorism, “but senior Colombian military and civilian officials familiar with negotiations” told the Associated Press “that the idea is to make Colombia a regional hub for Pentagon operations.”

The agreement provides Colombia with privileged access to U.S. military supplies, according to reports. Colombia had already become the leading recipient of U.S. military aid (apart from Israel-Egypt, a separate category).

Colombia has had by far the worst human rights record in the hemisphere since the Central American wars of the 1980s. The correlation between U.S. aid and human rights violations has long been noted by scholarship.

The AP also cited an April 2009 document of the U.S. Air Mobility Command, which proposes that the Palanquero base in Colombia could become a “cooperative security location.”

From Palanquero, “nearly half the continent can be covered by a C-17 (military transport) without refueling,” the document states. This could form part of “a global en route strategy,” which “helps achieve the regional engagement strategy and assists with the mobility routing to Africa.”

On Aug. 28, UNASUR met in Bariloche, Argentina, to consider the U.S. military bases in Colombia.

After intense debate, the final declaration stressed that South America must be kept as “a land of peace,” and that foreign military forces must not threaten the sovereignty or integrity of any nation of the region. And it instructed the South American Defense Council to investigate the Air Mobility Command document.

The bases’ official purpose did not escape criticism. Morales said he witnessed U.S. soldiers accompanying Bolivian troops who fired at members of his coca growers union.

“So now we’re narco-terrorists,” he continued. “When they couldn’t call us communists anymore, they called us subversives, and then traffickers, and since the September 11 attacks, terrorists.” He warned that “the history of Latin America repeats itself.”

The ultimate responsibility for Latin America’s violence lies with U.S. consumers of illegal drugs, Morales said: “If UNASUR sent troops to the United States to control consumption, would they accept it? Impossible.”

That the U.S. justification for its drug programs abroad is even regarded as worthy of discussion is yet another illustration of the depth of the imperial mentality.

Last February, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy issued its analysis of the U.S. “war on drugs” in past decades.

The commission, led by former Latin American presidents Fernando Cardoso (Brazil), Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico), and Cesar Gaviria (Colombia), concluded that the drug war had been a complete failure and urged a drastic change of policy, away from forceful measures at home and abroad and toward much less costly and more effective measures — prevention and treatment.

The commission report, like earlier studies and the historical record, had no detectable impact. The non-response reinforces the natural conclusion that the “drug war”—like the “war on crime” and “the war on terror”—is pursued for reasons other than the announced goals, which are revealed by the consequences.

During the past decade, the United States has increased military aid and training of Latin American officers in light infantry tactics to combat “radical populism”—a concept that, in the Latin American context, sends shivers up the spine.

Military training is being shifted from the State Department to the Pentagon, eliminating human rights and democracy provisions formerly under congressional supervision, always weak but at least a deterrent to some of the worst abuses.

The U.S. Fourth Fleet, disbanded in 1950, was reactivated in 2008, shortly after Colombia’s invasion of Ecuador, with responsibility for the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the surrounding waters.

Its “various operations include counter-illicit trafficking, Theater Security Cooperation, military-to-military interaction and bilateral and multinational training,” the official announcement says.

Militarization of South America aligns with much broader designs. In Iraq, information is virtually nil about the fate of the huge U.S. military bases there, so they presumably remain for force projection. The cost of the immense city-with-in-a-city embassy in Baghdad is to rise to $1.8 billion a year, from an estimated $1.5 billion.

The Obama administration is also building mega-embassies in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The United States and United Kingdom are demanding that the U.S. military base in Diego Garcia be exempted from the planned African nuclear-weapons-free-zone—as U.S. bases are off-limits in similar zoning efforts in the Pacific.

In short, moves toward “a world of peace” do not fall within the “change you can believe in,” to borrow Obama’s campaign slogan.

Original post at In These Times

MST releases photo and public note to society:

The Rural Landless Workers Movement (MST – Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) comes to public to manifest his grief again for the loss of companheiro Elton Brum loss, to manifest  solidarity to the family and for:

1. To denounce one more harsh and violent action of the Military Police of Rio Grande do Sul, what resulted in Elton Brum murder, 44 years, two children’s father, natural of Canguçu, during the forced eviction of Southall Farm occupation in São Gabriel. The information on the eviction shows that Brum was murdered when the situation was already controlled and there was no resistance. There are indications that he has been murdered by the backs.

2. To denounce that besides the landless worker death, the action still resulted in dozens of injured, including women and children, with wounds of splinters, swords and bitten of dogs.

3. We denounced Governor Yeda Crusius, hierarchal commander of the Military Police, responsible for a politics of criminalization of the social movements and of violence against the urban and rural workers. The use of firearms to deal with social movements reveals that the violence is part of the politics of this State. The criminalization is not an exception, but it is the rule and an unpopular government’s need, to service of obscure interests and to remain in the power by force.

4. We denounced Colonel Lauro Binsfield, Commander of the Military Police, whose report includes other disarray actions, cruelty and violence against the workers, as in the March 8, 2008, when he repeated the same methods against the women of Via Campesina.

5. We denounced the Judiciary Power that impeded the expropriation and the emission of ownership of Fazenda Antoniasi, where Elton Brum would be seated. His life would have been saved if the Judiciary Power was to service of Federal Constitution and not of interests of local oligarchies.

6. We denounced State Public Prosecution service in São Gabriel (MPE – Ministério Público Estadual) that was omitted when the seated families demanded the liberation of resources already available for the construction of the school for 350 families, of which kids now will lose the school year, and for health, what already costed three children’s life. The same MPE was omitted in the moment of the action, in front of the violence they witnessed in the field. And now they come to public to eulogize Military Police action as professional.

7. To recall the Brazilian society that rural social movements have been denouncing for more than one year that there is a criminalization politics from Yeda Crusius Government to the Commission of Human Rights of the Senate, to the Special Department for Human Rights, to Agrarian Audit and to OAS – Organization of American States. The omission of the authorities and the disrespect of the Governor to any institution and to democracy resulted today in a fatal victim.

8. To reaffirm that we will follow demanding the settlement of all families camped in Rio Grande do Sul and the infrastructure conditions to implement the settlements foreseen to São Gabriel.

We demanded Justice and Punishment to the Criminals!

For our dead, not even a minute of silence. A whole life of struggle!

Land reform, for social justice and popular sovereignty!

Rural Landless Workers Movement (MST – Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra)

(English version by me)

Un modèle menacé para la dépendance finacière

English version here

Par Renaud Lambert

En Equateur, grâce à une politique qu’il qualifie de « sociale et solidaire », et qui renforce le rôle de l’Etat, M. Rafael Correa a été réélu dès le premier tour de l’élection présidentielle du 26 avril. Au Panamá, le 3 mai, après le mandat décevant en matière de réduction de la pauvreté du social-démocrate Martín Torrijos, la candidate du Parti révolutionnaire démocratique (PRD), Mme Balbina Herrera, a été battue par M. Ricardo Martinelli, un homme d’affaires au profil berlusconien. Se démarquant de la gauche « radicale » du continent, Mme Herrera se réclamait du Brésilien Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva et de la Chilienne Michelle Bachelet. Ce constat d’ensemble n’a rien d’anodin dans la perspective des scrutins présidentiels de 2010, tant au Chili qu’au Brésil. Dans ce pays, et au-delà de quelques réformes sociales appréciables, la non-remise en cause du legs économique de ses prédécesseurs — même s’il le qualifie d’« héritage maudit » — par le président Lula pourrait bien mettre cette gauche en difficulté.

(…)

On perd à l’entrée, on perd à la sortie

Dans ce domaine, la seule véritable réussite aura été de renforcer le poids relatif des vingt mille familles brésiliennes qui détiennent 80% des titres de la dette, dont la rémunération accapare 30 % du budget fédéral. Un budget dont moins de 5 % vont à la santé et 2,5 % à l’éducation.

(…)

Les rapatriements à l’étranger de profits et de dividendes s’élèvent à près de 34 milliards de dollars en 2008 — environ 3 % du PIB —, une hausse de 50 % par rapport à 2007 et de… 500 % par rapport à 2003. La balance des comptes courants affiche ainsi, en 2008, son déficit le plus important depuis dix ans (28,3 milliards de dollars, soit 2,5 % du PIB).

(…)

Brasília met en avant des réserves internationales d’environ 200 milliards de dollars pour rassurer les investisseurs quant à un éventuel risque de crise de la balance des paiements. Pour l’heure, le Brésil estime disposer d’une marge de manœuvre conséquente — son taux directeur avoisinait 11 % en mars 2009. Toutefois, selon l’économiste Paulo Henrique Costa Mattos, le passif à court terme atteindrait 600 milliards de dollars. Alors que la plupart des pays du monde cherchent à s’endetter massivement, la compétition fait rage sur le marché de l’emprunt d’Etat : les taux finiront par remonter et le poids des dettes contractées d’ici là ne manquera pas de peser, à son tour, sur la balance des paiements et, donc, sur les épaules des Brésiliens.

Le phénomène de « dépendance » n’a rien de nouveau. En 1969, déjà, le ministre chilien des affaires étrangères Gabriel Valdés interpellait le président américain Richard Nixon : « Pour l’Amérique latine, l’investissement privé a toujours signifié, et signifie encore, que les sommes qui sortent de nos pays sont plusieurs fois supérieures à celles qui y sont investies. (…) En un mot, nous savons que l’Amérique latine donne plus qu’elle ne reçoit. »

Dans le passé, certains gouvernements, pas forcément de gauche, ont défendu des programmes de développement plus autonome, basés sur une substitution des importations. De tels projets reçurent les critiques de ceux qui estimaient que, pilotés par des « bourgeoisies nationales », ils étaient voués à l’échec. Pour ceux-là, une seule voie : celle de la révolution sociale. Le sociologue Cardoso était des leurs. Le syndicaliste Lula da Silva aussi.

Si ce dernier avait réellement souhaité, une fois au pouvoir, œuvrer au « découplage » de l’économie brésilienne, peut-être aurait-il dû choisir une autre option que celle d’épouser le programme économique de son prédécesseur. En y renonçant, il allait incarner la mue d’une partie de la gauche latino-américaine, que l’économiste de l’OCDE Santiso — enthousiaste — décrit en ces termes : « Des expressions telles que “lutte de classes”, “planification économique” et “stratégies de substitution des importations” ont été remplacées par d’autres, telles que “consensus démocratique”, “consolidation institutionnelle”, “dérégulation économique” et “ouverture au libre-échange”. »

C’est donc équipé d’une telle boîte à outils que M. Lula da Silva s’attaque aux difficultés économiques du Brésil. Aux Etats-Unis, il demande plus de commerce, aux Brésiliens de se serrer la ceinture. A Dieu, on l’a vu, une « reprise » des économies du « centre ». Aux investisseurs étrangers et aux détenteurs des titres de la dette ? Rien, ou si peu.

Récemment interrogé sur la question des responsabilités face à la crise actuelle, le président brésilien estimait : « Nous n’avons pas créé le problème mais nous faisons partie de la solution.  » Vraiment?

Read it full at Le Monde Diplomatique

Written by Marie Trigona
Friday, 14 August 2009

The workers at Argentina’s occupied ceramics factory, FASINPAT (Factory Without a Boss), won a major victory this week: the factory now definitively belongs to the people in legal terms. The provincial legislature voted in favor of expropriating the ceramics factory and handing it over to the workers cooperative to manage legally and indefinitely. Since 2001, the workers at Zanon have fought for legal recognition of worker control at Latin America’s largest ceramics factory which has created jobs, spearheaded community projects, supported social movements world-wide and shown the world that workers don’t need bosses.

“This is incredible, we are happy. The expropriation is an act of justice,” said Alejandro Lopez the General Secretary of the Ceramists Union, overwhelmed by the emotion of the victory. “We don’t forget the people who supported us in our hardest moments, or the 100,000 people who signed the petition supporting our bill.”

Hundreds of workers from the FASINPAT factory waited anxiously until the late hours of the night for the legislature’s decision. The expropriation law passed 26 votes in favor and 9 votes against the bill. Thousands of supporters from other workers’ organizations, human rights groups and social movements, along with entire families and students, joined the workers as they waited outside the provincial legislature in the capital city of Neuquén. Enduring the Patagonian winter weather, activists played drums and shouted: “here they are the workers of Zanon, workers without a boss.”

FASINPAT has operated under worker control since 2001 when Zanon’s owners decided to close its doors and fire the workers without paying months of back pay or severance pay. Leading up to the massive layoffs and plant’s closure, workers went on strike in 2000. The owner, Luis Zanon, with over 75 million dollars in debt to public and private creditors (including the World Bank for over 20 million dollars), fired en masse most of the workers and closed the factory in 2001-a bosses’ lockout. In October 2001, workers declared the plant under worker control. The workers subsequently camped outside the factory for four months, pamphleteering and partially blocking a highway leading to the capital city of Neuquén. While the workers were camping outside the factory, a court ruled that the employees could sell off remaining stock. After the stock ran out, on March 2, 2002, the workers’ assembly voted to start up production without a boss. Since the occupation, the workers renamed the factory FASINPAT (Factory without a Boss).

The workers set up a stage with a giant screen for the thousands of supporters to view the legislative vote. As the decision was read, workers embraced one another in tears in disbelief that after 8 years of struggle they finally won legal control of the factory. “This decision reflects an organized struggle that won the support all of society,” said Veronica Hullipan from the Confederation of Mapuche. She said that the network of Mapuche indigenous communities in the Patagonia have supported the Zanon workers’ struggle and said legal decision is a “political triumph of workers’ organization.”

Zanon workers reminded their supporters that the struggle of Zanon, was also the struggle of Carlos Fuentealba, a public school teacher from the province of Neuquén killed by a police officer during a peaceful protest in defense of public education.  The Zanon workers have not only created jobs, but they have supported workers struggles locally, nationally and internationally. Workers from FASINPAT were present at the protest where Fuentealba was shot point blank in the head with a tear gas canister, in police repression ordered by the conservative ruling coalition of Neuquén MPN, which has ruled the Patagonian province since the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

“This is an important chapter in the struggle of the Zanon workers, who have been fighting in the streets for more than 9 years. First they tried to evict us in order to auction off the factory, the workers’ struggle and the community pressured the government to expropriate the factory,” Raul Godoy, Zanon worker told the national news daily Página/12.  Today, the plant exports ceramics to 25 countries.

Many legislative representatives wanted to demand that the workers at the self-managed factory “guarantee a pact for social peace.” But for the workers, the pact for social peace is broken when businessmen fraudulently go bankrupt and throw hundreds of workers out into the street. “The capitalists are constantly declaring war with tariff increases, by privatizing public companies and with firings. Before this situation, the workers must defend themselves; and the workers at Zanon commit to defending ourselves, in the street, however we have to.”

According to the legislation passed, the FASINPAT cooperative which employs 470 workers and exports ceramics to more than 25 countries, will remain under the control of the cooperative. The state would pay off 22 million pesos (around $7 million) to the creditors. One of the main creditors is the World Bank – which gave a loan of 20 million dollars to Luis Zanon for the construction of the plant, which he never paid back. The other major creditor is the Italian company SACMY that produces state of the art ceramics manufacturing machinery and is owed over $5 million. However, the workers have resisted the state pay-off, saying that courts have proven that the creditors participated in the fraudulent bankruptcy of the plant in 2001, because the credits went directly to the owner Luis Zanon and not investments into the factory. “If someone should pay, Luis Zanon should pay, who is being charged with tax evasion,” said Omar Villablanca from FASINPAT.

Victory, then an eviction

While the victory of FASINPAT brings hope to many of the 200 occupied factories currently operated under worker self-management in Argentina, many are still facing legal attacks. Early yesterday morning, just hours after the Zanon victory, a police operative evicted the factory Textil Quilmes, a thread factory occupied in the new wave of factory occupations in 2009. The four workers on night guard were evicted violently. The Buenos Aires provincial government is currently debating an expropriation bill for Textil Quilmes and several other new occupations in the Buenos Aires province. The textile workers are resisting the eviction at the factory’s doors, rallying support to re-enter the factory despite police presence.  They also had temporary legal protection, following an expropriation bill that was approved unanimously by the lower house in the provincial legislature.

The workers occupied the plant on February 11, 2009. “We camped outside the plant to avoid the bosses’ liquidation of the machinery. And the workers decided to take a direct action, occupy and form a cooperative,” said Eduardo Santillán, a Quilmes textile worker. With the remaining cotton left in the plant, the workers immediately began to produce cotton thread. At the time of the firing, more than 80 worked at the plant. In a common practice for business owners who file bankruptcy despite an increased demand for their product, the owner Ruben Ballani of Febatex owed the workers months of unpaid salaries, unpaid vacation time and social security. The workers also reported that the owner would force his employees to work 12 hour shifts, a practice outlawed nearly 100 years ago.

Six months after the workers were fired and the union (Sindicato Textil – AOT) failed to intervene, the workers at Textil Quilmes started up production. They claim that the union, who turned their backs on the workers once they were fired, is now negotiating on behalf of the bosses.

The occupations in Argentina continue to rise as the global economic crisis hits the South American nation. The Arrufat chocolate factory, Disco de Oro empanada pastry manufacturer, Indugraf printing press, Febatex thread producer and Lidercar meat packing plant joined the ranks of the worker occupied factory movement from 2008 to 2009. Textil Quilmes has fought along with workers from other factories occupied since the onset of the global economic crisis to demand expropriation laws; none have a definitive legal future.

Many independent analysts expect the global recession to hit Argentina’s real economy. Unemployment rates have gone up and industry growth has halted, while the financial sector remains unaffected because it already took a major blow in 2001. Those who benefited from Argentina’s economic recovery of course are now those who are using this crisis as an excuse to downsize and lay-off workers with the promise of public bailout packages and government credits.

The phenomenon of worker occupations continues to grow as the world falls deeper into the current recession. Nearly 20 new factories in Argentina were occupied since 2008. This may be a sign that workers are confronting the current global financial crisis with lessons and tools from previous worker occupied factories post-2001 economic collapse and popular rebellion. Today, some 250 worker occupied enterprises are up and running, employing more than 13,000. Many of these sites have been producing under worker self-management since 2002, providing nearly a decade of lessons, experiments, strategies and mistakes to learn from.

Zanon and others from the occupied factory movement have proven that they are capable of doing what bosses aren’t interested in doing: creating jobs and work with dignity.  This may be why government representatives, industry leaders and factory owners have remained silent and often times reacted with hostility on this issue; they are afraid of these sites multiplying and the example they have set.

At Zanon, workers constantly use the slogan: “Zanon es del pueblo” or Zanon belongs to the people. The workers have adopted the objective of producing not only to provide jobs and salaries for more than 470 people, but also to create new jobs, make donations in the community and to support other social movements. For many at the recuperated enterprises, the occupation of their workplace meant much more than safe-guarding their jobs, it also became part of a struggle for a world without exploitation. While the Zanon victory is a step in the right direction, many of the occupations are facing eviction orders. FASINPAT can now operate legally and focus their attention to producing ceramics in a faltering economy. The Zanon collective has expressed their continued commitment to defending workers’ rights and self-management, which means defending all worker occupations with slogan: “si nos tocan a uno, nos tocan a todos”: “if they mess with one of us, they mess with all of us.”

Original source: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2052/32/

In Honduras, One-Sided News of Crisis

Critics Cite Slanted Local Coverage, Limits on Pro-Zelaya Outlets

By Juan Forero

“Several countries condemned the events of June 28 as a military coup. But in Honduras, some of the most popular and influential television stations and radio networks blacked out coverage or adhered to the de facto government’s line that Manuel Zelaya’s overthrow was not a coup but a legal “constitutional substitution,” press freedom advocates and Honduran journalists said.

Meanwhile, soldiers raided the offices of radio and TV stations loyal to Zelaya, shutting down their signals. Alejandro Villatoro, 52, the owner of Radio Globo, said soldiers broke down doors and dismantled video surveillance cameras.

“They grabbed me and put me face down and put six rifles on me, with a foot on my back holding me down,” he said. “It was like I was a common criminal.”

Such allegations underscore the one-sided nature of the news that has been served up to Hondurans during the crisis. According to results of a Gallup poll published here Thursday, 41 percent of Hondurans think the ouster was justified, with 28 opposed to it.

The de facto regime headed by Roberto Micheletti cited such support as he began talks Thursday in Costa Rica with that country’s president, Oscar Arias, who has agreed to mediate. Zelaya met separately with Arias, who said representatives of the two men will continue meeting in the days ahead.

In Honduras, though, the country’s new leaders, the security forces and the clergy argue that Zelaya’s removal had legal justification the rest of the world does not understand. Local media largely “slanted coverage” to favor that position, said Carlos Lauría of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The de facto government clearly used the security forces to restrict the news,” Lauría said. “Hondurans did not know what was going on. They clearly acted to create an information vacuum to keep people unaware of what was actually happening.”

Read it full at Washington Post

By Jeffrey W. Rubin and Emma Sokoloff-Rubin

“Today, once again, the idea of equitable development doesn’t seem radical, but rather makes common sense. And the potential for a hemispheric alliance is stronger than ever. Democracies in Latin America have already produced innovative strategies for tackling tough problems, from racial exclusion to urban poverty to migration, and they have forged progressive coalitions to support these new approaches. In Buenos Aires, factories run cooperatively by workers – factories that were taken over when the owners ran them into bankruptcy – compete efficiently in the market. In Rio de Janeiro, kids in shantytowns join music groups to fight drug trafficking and violence, while in San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mayan Indians organize transportation systems and marketing networks in urban neighborhoods where 30 years ago they would have been forbidden to live. And through hometown associations in the United States, Mexican migrants send back money to their communities of origin, where remittances are matched three-for-one by the Mexican government in an investment program overseen by the migrants themselves.

This is the face of democratic innovation in our hemisphere. For the first time ever, the vast majority of key actors in Latin America, from businesspeople to militaries, middle classes to grassroots social movements, play by the democratic rules of the game and respond to disagreement with counterproposals rather than violence. And for the first time ever, a U.S. President speaking a language of cooperation and dialogue could transform a century of distrust into a forward-looking hemispheric alliance.”

Read full article at http://blogs.reuters.com/

Claudio A. Holzner
Assistant Professor, University of Utah

See it at All Academic

William Robinson

University of California at Santa Barbara

Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 135-153, 2004

See article at:

http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/robinson/Assets/pdf/new%20pdfs/global_crisis.pdf

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