Labour process and decision-making in factories under workers' self-management: empirical evidence from Argentina

Atzeni, Maurizio; Ghigliani, Pablo

doi:10.1177/0950017007082875

Cited by 74 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…It was a defensive reaction to the fear of unemployment that nevertheless fostered a sense of collective purpose and democratic ethos through a process of experimentation with alternative work practices. We should of course not undermine the tensions that inhabit autonomous practices and the constraints that market mediations imposed on self-management and workplace democracy (see for example, Atzeni and Ghigliani, 2007). Yet what I would like to point to is the ways in which they address these challenges and lessen the adoption of capitalist work relations through a repertoire of organizational innovations.…”

Section: Organizational Democracy: From Representation To More Inclusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spaces of possibilities: workers’ self-management in Greece

2014

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This paper focuses on the process of workers' self-management brought about by a wave of experimentation with alternative organizational forms taking place in Greece since the beginning of the current financial crisis. The discussion is supported by empirical evidence from qualitative fieldwork conducted in three workers' collectives. Drawing on the findings of my research, I argue that the members' values and everyday practices give shape and meaning to their aspirations of creating a space that not only critiques the existing forms of work but also puts into practice other possibilities that give emphasis to reciprocal relationships and prioritise collective working, egalitarianism and autonomy. I also argue that their established consensus-based decision-making models, far from representing a state of agreement, allowswithin collectively determined boundaries -the creation of a space where diverse opinions flourish rather than being suppressed. This encourages the development of more inclusive models of participation and the construction of rule-creating rather than rule-following individuals.

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Section: Organizational Democracy: From Representation To More Inclusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spaces of possibilities: workers’ self-management in Greece

2014

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“…Comercio y Justicia is involved in the most competitive market of the four ERTs I worked with, which is dominated by Argentina's largest media and newspaper conglomerate, Grupo Clarín. Paralleling similar theses put forward by Atzeni and Ghigliani (2007) and Fajn and Rebón (2005) with regards to ERTs and continued competitive markets, Comercio y Justicia's highly competitive market seems to have encouraged this ERT to continue to organize itself within a hierarchical production process, emulating the divisions of labour of investorowned newspapers. For example, each of the newspaper's sectors is headed by an appointed encargado, or chief, that is, a "chief correspondent," "editor in chief," "chief of publication," etc.…”

Section: The Transformation Of Workplacesmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…Interviews delved into personal changes in workers' attitudes, values, and practices, as well as reflecting on the structural changes in their firms before and since recuperation. Selected through a criteria "diversification" based on economic activity, size, and location (Atzeni and Ghigliani, 2007), my extended case studies had me visit each ERT for several weeks at a time, both engaging in interviews and informal conversations and observing daily workflows.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning in Struggle: Argentina’s New Worker Cooperatives as Transformative Learning Organizations

Vieta

2014

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This article considers Argentina’s empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores (worker-recuperated enterprises, or ERTs) as transformative learning organizations. ERTs are illustrative of how workers’ conversions of capitalist firms into worker cooperatives—especially conversions emerging from troubled firms and in moments of deep socio-economic crises—transform workers (from managed employees to self-managed workers), work organizations (from capitalist businesses to labour-managed firms), and communities (from depleted to revitalized and self-provisioning localities).Theoretically, the study is grounded in class-struggle, workplace learning, and social action learning approaches. These theoretical perspectives help the study work through how workplace conversions by workers, when converting troubled investor-owned or proprietary firms into worker coops, act as catalysts for contesting workplace exploitation and capitalist crises, while also beginning to move beyond them by forging new social relations of production and exchange. In the case of Argentina’s ERTs, crises in the political economy and micro-economic crises at the point of production during the collapse of the neoliberal model at the turn of the millennium heightened workers’ self-awareness of their situations of exploitation and motivated collective action. As a result, new worker cooperatives were created that also stimulated the social, cultural, and economic renewal of surrounding communities.The study’s research method relies on extended case studies of four diverse ERTs, which included ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews. Observations of daily workflows were conducted, as well as interviews and informal conversations with founding and newer ERT workers. In a more structured portion of the interview protocol, key-informants were asked to reflect on how they had personally changed after being involved in the ERT, and how production practices and involvement with the community had transformed in the process of conversion.The article concludes by outlining how worker, organizational, and community transformations emerge from workers’ processes of informal learning and learning in struggle as they collectively strive to overcome macro- and micro-economic crises and learn to become cooperators. This learning, the study shows, occurs in two ways: intra-cooperatively via informal workplace learning, and inter-cooperatively between workers from different ERTs and with surrounding communities. The self-management forged by ERTs thus embodies new, cooperative, and community-centered values and practices for these workers that, in turn, sketch out different possibilities for economic and productive life in Argentina.Cet article présente les empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores en Argentine (entreprises rachetées par des travailleuses et des travailleurs ou ERT), comme des organisations d’apprentissage transformatrise. Les ERT illustrent bien comment des entreprises capitalistes converties en coopératives – particulièrement dans les cas de c...

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“…Although many traditional Marxist theorists have discredited the emancipatory potential of worker cooperatives, as shown by Atzeni and Ghigliani (2007), this is not the case with this research. Within an economic perspective that proposes a transformation of the economic structure in pursuit of redistributive justice (Coraggio, 2010), sustainability, and participatory democracy (Utting, 2015), the analysis of worker cooperatives can shed light on an important sector of the SSE.…”

Section: Tensions Within Social and Solidarity Economymentioning

confidence: 70%

Social and Solidarity Economy in a Neoliberal Context: Transformative or Palliative? The Case of an Argentinean Worker Cooperatives

Raffaelli¹

2017

JEOD

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Neoliberalisation process was imposed worldwide and it made many grassroots responses emerge, which many can be conceptualised as part of the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE). Within this field, worker co-operatives appear as an option to mainly safeguard employment and earn a living. Several cases have been documented about worker co-operatives as a way to develop impoverished areas or vulnerable populations. However, co-operatives in many cases appear as a second best employment option during turmoil, rather than as an alternative to mainstream economy, which ultimately is the cause of poverty and vulnerability. This paper seeks to widen social economic literature and explores the tension inherent in the concept of SSE, namely whether it should be seen as an alternative to capitalism or a means of ameliorating its worst effects. Although this tension has been minimised in the literature, by introducing the case of an Argentine workers' cooperative, this research illustrates how these two antagonistic discourses coexist within the organisation.

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Labour process and decision-making in factories under workers' self-management: empirical evidence from Argentina

Cited by 74 publications

References 6 publications

Spaces of possibilities: workers’ self-management in Greece

Spaces of possibilities: workers’ self-management in Greece

Learning in Struggle: Argentina’s New Worker Cooperatives as Transformative Learning Organizations

Social and Solidarity Economy in a Neoliberal Context: Transformative or Palliative? The Case of an Argentinean Worker Cooperatives

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