It has now been three years that Zanón, the leading ceramic tile company in the country, located in the locality of Nequén, has been under the administration of its own workers. In its time, before the Argentinazo, the workers of the factory occupied the plant and on March 2, 2002, started up production, opening the first production line. During this time, the workers have multiplied factory production, which at present amounts to 350,000 square meters of ceramics, twenty times, at the same time duplicating the number of workers, up from 200 to 450 brothers and sisters. They have therefore demonstrated in actual practice the superiority of the methods of organization of the working class in opposition to the ineffectiveness and parasitic character of the bosses, responsible for the gutting and abandonment of the factory. The brothers and sisters of Zanón, during this interval, have resisted various attempts at evicting them. The defense of Zanón has become a popular cause, even outside Neuquén.
The bosses have failed in all their maneuvers to regain control of the plant; among them, declaring bankruptcy, which the owners of Zanón first tried in 2001, in the framework of the gutting of the plant they had been orchestrating. The last of those maneuvers consisted in the setting up of a ghost company which officiated as a front for the old owners of the company, that is, of Zanón itself (its leading stockholders where his wife and one of his sons), which unexpectedly introduced itself as an investor interested in buying the factory. The Chamber of Appeals denied the request and, as a consequence, the court was obliged to sentence bankruptcy.
The bankruptcy of Zanón opens a new stage; it will accentuate capitalist pressure, particularly that of the State, against workers administration. There are two alternatives which may arise from the bankruptcy: that the judge decree the continuity of the company, or proceed directly to the auctioning off of the assets. In the case of the former, which appears to be the most improbable, the law opens the possibility for the workers, organized in the form of a cooperative, to take charge of the company. But this workers administration remains under supervision and must adapt itself to a plan previously agreed upon with the creditors, detailing the way in which the debts will be canceled.
The auctioning of the assets, on the other hand, poses once again the perspective of eviction. This variation constitutes an ideal terrain upon which may prosper proposals for the purchase of the factory by the Zanón workers themselves, as has already occurred in the case of other regained factories. The proposal will be seen, of course, as “the lesser evil.”
In the case of an auction, the workers would have to compete for the purchase with other capitalist groups, and even with the former owners. The process of a court ordered liquidation of the company is a mined field and may be taken advantage of for an endless series of maneuvers by capitalists capable of manipulating the prices of the assets, fixing the starting bids for the auction and fully conditioning the process leading to the final auction and awarding of the assets.
Under these conditions an eventual acquisition of the plant by the Zanón workers could turn into a Pyhrric victory. At the present time, the brothers and sisters are receiving a wage of around 1,000 pesos, that is, 60 percent of the cost of living, and they have been losing buying power compared to the wages they were receiving two years ago. What would happen with the current equation if the debt originating in the purchase of the factory were to be summed in?
The purchase would certainly have to be made in cash. The workers administration would be obliged to take out a loan, that is, to become strongly dependent on business groups.
If there was nothing else left to do than reach a compromise, it is important to avoid presenting it as a successful or strategic solution, as the end of the road. If we accept those compromises out of force of circumstances, we should, however, continue to struggle for the strategic objectives of workers administration that maintains its independence up until the time of a future popular uprising. Beyond the compromises that we may be forced to adopt, we have to be clear that court supervised workers administration, on the one hand, as well as purchase, on the other, are perspectives alien to our class interests. In opposition to those perspectives we defend the expropriation without any compensation whatsoever and independent workers administration. We struggle for subsidies, a guaranteed wage and the participation of worker members of the board in a nationalized bank. In synthesis, a program which inscribes itself within a process of integral transformation of the country upon new social foundations.
This puts forward a unified plan of struggle for the whole workers movement. The ceramic workers trade union of Neuquén would have to place itself at the head of this call and demand from the trade union confederations and the unions of Neuquén a plan of struggle that includes the expropriation of Zanón. The bankruptcy must be taken advantage of in order to lend new impulse to the expropriation of Zanón, at a time in which a rebellion against the government of Sobisch is incubating in the province.
