ARGENTINA: SELF MANAGEMENT FACES SOCIAL DEMOCRACY:

WORKERS' POWER IN ARGENTINA: REINVENTING WORKING CULTURE:

The Autonomy and Solidarity site has an excellent article on recent developments in Argentina and the struggle to maintain self management in the face of repression from the supposed "leftists" of the Argentinian government. The article is by Marie Trigona and was originally published in Monthy Review. The article gives a broad overview of the self management organizations that Argentinian workers have formed with special emphasis on subway workers, the Class Struggle Coalition (MIC), the Union of Seamstress Workers (UTC), the Zanon ceramics factory, now run by the Factory Without a Boss (FaSinPat) cooperative and the collectivized Bauen Hotel in Buenos Aires. She also goes into detail about the violence used by the Argentinian state (good buddies of the Venezuelan demagogue Chavez) against strikers and other protesting workers. All this is situated in terms of a "Road Ahead" for the challenges that face the self managing workers and the Argentinian workers in general. As the author says...

"Even in the face of attacks many of Argentina's labour organizations like the subway workers, public-health workers and several worker-run enterprises have fostered a broad mutual solidarity network to defend workers' rights. Subway workers have pledged their willingness to use striking as a direct action against state repression of labour conflicts. In Neuquen, Zanon has formed a broad mutual solidarity network among local community groups, workers in struggle, and recuperated enterprises nationally and internationally. While doing so the FaSinPat collective has turned into a major mobilizing factor in the Neuquen province.

"Argentina's social organizations, just as in Chile, Uruguay and Brazil, have faced new challenges due to the resurgence of the "progressive pink tide" of social democratic governments. Increasing police brutality, political arrests, and criminalization of social protest are just some of the challenges along the "pink road" ahead. How to continue to build a broad coalition movement is the biggest obstacle for Argentina's working class organization in the face of the government's attempt to co-opt organizations and implement pro-business policies, while cutting back public spending, Despite political challenges, Argentina's independent union organizing initiatives and recuperated enterprises represent the development of one of the most advanced strategies in defense of the working class and resistance against capitalism and neoliberalism."