Challenge capitalism through workers 'control Why is it important workers' control?

Interview with Dario Azzellini, sociologist and political scientist

Ricardo Vaz

Investig'Action

Translated to English by Beatriz Morales Bastos Rebellion

A common characteristic of every crisis, from the upheavals of the early twentieth century to the neoliberal restructuring of the end of that  same  century is the emergence of workers ' control, the workers organize themselves to take over their workplaces  in order to  defend their jobs and their communities. Interviewed  Dario Azzellini *  to discuss  this topic  in Depths d :  the emergence of  new broader values and social relations not only in places of recovered work but also in the communities, the need to reorient production, overcoming the separation between the political, economic and social spheres, and the role of workers ' control in the fight against capitalism .  

Why is it important workers ' control? 

It is important because if we see what is socialism, what Karl Marx described, the living example is for him the  Commune of P ar t s . It is the people taking charge of things and the disappearance of the state as such because power is no longer delegated.

But I would say that workers' control is the first step on the road to socialism, in the sense that the control of production and the company should not be done only on behalf of workers but also of communities, people self-organized in general. And even this is not the last step because, as Marx says, the commune is the last discovered political form, so it remains a political form. Socialism, or communism, is to go beyond politics, in getting self-organize life.
So these are intermediate steps and even the commune should be the final form, but we can not even imagine the final shape because we're stuck in the imagination of what we know and what has been done. Probably what has to be developed is beyond our imagination now. 

However, it is also important in the immediate context ...

Yes, because if workers take over their workplaces and decide on production processes and change work values, everything changes. Safety issues and health become fundamental, and are far from being in places of capitalist work. For example, in many workplaces controlled by the workers they are beginning to work with less toxic organic or production because they are exposed.

So these issues become critical once the workers can decide. The struggle is no longer just about increasing wages, which is the only fight that more or less is allowed within the framework of capitalist society. Workers' control, however, automatically challenges to capitalism. We have a main area of ​​conflict and obviously all other fronts, such as gender, race, etc., are equally important. But work and production are fundamental not only to society, but are also an area we all have in common and that is absolutely critical to our own survival and for the structuring of the whole society. Obviously, in this area must also address all other contradictions.
We must not forget that the predominant form of organized rse the economy and society is reflected in the rest of society. For example, while  Fordism  was the predominant form of production the rest of society (universities, schools, bureaucracy) Fordist organized manner. So there is some leverage if we talk about work and workers ' control. 

E n  the two books he has published many historical describe scenarios in which  workers ' control comes into play. What was the purpose of gathering all these different experiments ?  

Both books as research try to show what is important and recurring question of workers' control, and we need to understand it and make it known that anyone really cares to make it known. The unions are not interested in showing that workers can organize themselves; if workers organize themselves, also it passes over the parties, which are based on the principle of representation. And the capitalists, of course, still have less interest.

But it is interesting that workers' control pass to the fore in each type of crisis, political, economic, in the anti-colonial struggles, during the revolutions of the early twentieth century, after World War II and other wars, when capitalism is not able to develop because capitalists invest in speculation and trade, and not in production; It occurred during the neoliberal restructuring of the early 1980s, etc. So always it happened, not because the workers knew earlier experiments but because it was something that was atropológicamente present in workers: unite, organize themselves democratically and try to maintain production, thereby benefiting themselves and the people in around them.

What are the common characteristics of all these different attempts of workers ' control? 

This is the first common aspect in any crisis there are always workers who take responsibility for their work, their workplaces and individuals, society. The second is that elected democratic structures based on equality, not simply elect a new leader. Hierarchies disappear, not really matter what position had earlier in the production chain. That does not determine what a person can do in a crisis. 

It is the example of  clinical J unin which it is now under workers' control in Cordoba, Argentina. I visited the clinic and the head of the cooperative is now the old janitor and technician, because he was the person most able to organize the fight, so it was chosen as the formal head of the cooperative, which still decides everything in assemblies on a democratic basis. This shows that the skills or abilities apparently are important in a capitalist hierarchy are not the same in a democratic structure based on the workers' assembly.

Another common feature is that the company goes from being a company organized hierarchically in which the main objective is to produce as much surplus value as possible, to be a company in which the welfare of workers and purpose of production (which is produce and for whom) it becomes the main issue. Thus, changing social relations in the factory, especially if these places go through a process of struggle or occupation, against former heads or political struggles. During these struggles confidence that inevitably force a change in social relations it is constructed.
An example of this is that it becomes less rigid that people have to do the same amount of work. Or if there are sick or who can not go to work because their children are sick, that is not a problem. Other workers understand because of that relationship of trust that I mentioned earlier. Naturally, this contrasts with workplaces where there is a boss. But also in many traditional cooperatives do not have to go through this struggle to build trust, there are also more likely to require everyone to do the same amount of work, there are conflicts over working hours, internal conflicts, etc. 

Thus,  companies  or recovered factories  are not limited to reproduce the old logic ...

Exact. Especially if they have had a long struggle do not go back, not reinstalled the jera r chies of which were fought. It is a little different in places that did not have a long struggle. There was a certain contradiction, for example in Venezuela (1), where there was a government that (supposedly) was in favor of workers' control. To workers they occupied a company and two weeks after the government intervened, is a company expropriated and put an interim administration for the moment then supposed to workers. At first glance it seems a great, but at the same time the workers did not have time to form a collective to create this awareness.

Therefore, very often just having conflicts between workers or workers ' control never achieved because the administration is reluctant to do so. I say it is contradictory because it is not desirable that these people have to struggle for years without income business but on the other hand, then that's what makes these companies controlled by the workers are truly democratic and successful. 

You mentioned cooperatives and this is an important point of discussion . Most of these companies controlled or recovered by workers are legally registered as cooperatives. But, as noted, they are not as cooperative usual. What are the main differences?  

The first major difference is that  cooperativ to s  traditional generally often mean that people who already have similar ideas and values come together to create the cooperative. The recovery of a company is very different because everyone is involved. Each of the people who work there is also there potentially when carrying out recovery. It's something that Gramsci describes when it comes to workers ' councils. States that are the real class organization because the class is there, not only political persuasions.

Another very important difference is that traditional cooperatives have a strong tendency to base the right to decide on the property, one of the owners of the cooperative. And this is problematic because it is the same logic of capitalism. Places of work have recovered democracy in the workshops and their starting point is to question the private ownership of the means of production, so immediately questioned capitalism. At the same time, almost none of these work places have recovered models based on individual or unequal shares, or even outside investors or use hired labor, characteristics that are common to cooperatives.

So there are all these differences. It is almost always more pleasant to work in a cooperative in a purely private capitalist enterprise, but what I insist is that cooperatives as such are only democratization within the framework of capitalism. Many cooperatives are guided by business logic or property and thus lead workers to what I call a "limbo class". Workers no longer know they are workers. This is particularly strong in the United States, where cooperatives are presented as an alternative business model and not as an alternative model for society or communities, or as part of the struggle of the workers, which is what the cooperative meant historically. But given the way they live, how they work, they're not entrepreneurs,

This contrasts sharply with the locations of recovered work, in which workers consider themselves part of the labor movement having gone through those struggles. There are many recovered companies  Argentin to , for example, that have the rule that one day a month will support the struggles of other workers and that is part of their work. In Uruguay when companies a given sector are on strike, workers recovered companies in the same sector will also strike not to undermine the struggle of other workers.

In short, unions are waging a struggle for survival in a capitalist system. Recovered work places waging a struggle against bourgeois law, which often manifests itself in state repression against capitalists and private property owners. Thus, workers are reaffirmed in their subjectivity as workers and as workers struggle leaderless, and that's a fundamental difference. 

How would you characterize relations between workplaces recovered s  and unions?

They vary greatly, depending on the unions. There have been examples of unions that have supported the occupations by workers and is very positive because unions can reach a wider audience. But unfortunately, most of the time the unions either ignore or negatively involved.

In any case, do not see the unions and workers ' control as antagonistic projects simply are two different things, two different fighting fronts. One thing is a self - organization in the company that allows struggles that are not possible with the unions. Unions have formal recognition and are interested abide by the rules and laws to maintain their status of "partner that can be trusted , " so they will not do certain things, like wild strikes or occupations. They are not as flexible or as fast as their decisions are obviously the workers ' assemblies. 

You mentioned that  companies recovered new social relationships occur, but recovered companies also create new social relationships with their communities. Can you tell us about it? 

Yes, the relationship with the community and with other social movements is fundamental. In fact, it can be flipped to this statement. All examples of places of recovered work (factories, restaurants, print shops, hospitals, etc) that tend to succeed are usually those who have a strong relationship with their communities and with other social movements. Those who tend to isolate themselves and do not have those strong relationships over time often or become workplaces or more or less traditional cooperatives and withdraw from the broader struggle or fail because they simply do not have the necessary support.

And there is another issue that is fundamental. In the capitalist system close a business is simply a legal issue. It is not a social issue nor is it a political issue. The law of the land is a bourgeois law that is based on the property. Within these limits the possibilities of achieving something are minimal. So the main challenge for these workers is to make a legal issue into a political issue and for this the maximum amount of support is needed. Support of communities, of other movements, trade unions and perhaps even of institutions and political bodies is needed. And with that you can win everything. 

An example is Republic Doors and Windows, the factory now called  New Era Windows in Chicago, which produces environmentally friendly windows. When it was closed and occupied for the second time, along with Occupy Chicago in 2010-11, the occupation gave workers the possibility of e star at the negotiating table on the future of factory workers who later agreed to buy. And workers did forcing banks who had remained with the bankrupt factory to pay a million and a half dollars for unpaid wages. Generally if there is money (for example, from the sale of machinery) would remain creditors. But the workers managed to make a political campaign that generated so much support from public opinion that banks were forced to pay workers a million and a half dollars although they were not legally obliged to do so.

So they were able to convert a legal question in  one  policy ...

Accurate and once you do that you can win everything, even things that seem completely impossible or not contained in the existing legal framework. This is one of the main reasons why it is important to have relationships with other movements and communities. The second is that new values are created. Factory work is not usually a nice job, even in a recovered factory. What keeps you working in capitalism is money, but a recovered company workers find new values and one of the values is to be useful to society, not only to capitalism.

For industrial companies tend to be located in poor communities. In Beverly Hills there are no factories! A common feature of these poor communities is the lack of space. Lack of space for social, collective activities. In Argentina, for example, where there are more than 400 places of work recovered more than 60% provide a permanent space for community activities, from the  popular high schools, Ie the possibility that adults study, to community radio stations, libraries and even just community festivals. So become an important focus of community life and somehow become common spaces that are used for activities that are not directly linked to production. 

Can you tell us of the need to reorient the recovered factories production? P or  if these factories  have closed  because they are no longer profitable, workers can not simply go back to what they produced before . 

Indeed, often simply not possible to continue with the production that came before. An example is  Officine Zero (2), an old repair installation of night trains in Rome. Night trains have almost disappeared in Europe, there is only one facility that is sufficient for the few overnight trains that still work. Most trains are now high speed, so can not continue planning to produce or repair overnight trains. Workers took over the factory now engaged in many other activities, such as recycling appliances or furniture, and have continued with the workshops were: upholstery, carpentry and blacksmithing. 

Another example is  Rimaflow Milan (2), it is producing air conditioning pipes, especially for BMW cars. The owner took the machines, but even if he had not fact, BMW would not buy air conditioning pipes at a factory occupied! So it had to reinvent itself. But that's good because then the workers start to think of a useful production. Rimaflow began with a mixture of activities, for example, processing and recycling of household appliances and computers.
Later they raised money for an air conditioning system and set up a space for recycling industrial pallets. So industrial pallets collect all kinds of factories, repaired and resold. They also began to produce food and artisan liquor in cooperation with organic cooperatives. Rimoncello occur, a lemon liqueur (Limoncello original mind), along with southern Italian cooperatives that pay fair wages to migrant and seasonal workers produce  Amaro Partigiano (a digestive liqueur) together with the Italian Institute for Studies Partisans.
A traditional economist would call it "amalgamation", but I do not think so, this really makes sense. We need to transform our society in every way, so that these examples work industrial conversion make sense because, of course, not workplaces concerned to continue just the same form of capitalist production that had before. We do not want to engage everything and then continue producing military helicopters! 

In that sense, in capitalist societies, in liberal democracies, there is a separation between the economic, social and political spheres. How do you challenge  this separation  enterprises recovered by workers themselves and through their relationships with communities ?

Yes, I think it is a fundamental aspect of what we call "democracy of advice" as a model for municipalities controlled by workers places, etc. Capitalism and bourgeois society, it has always been based on the division of spheres. The first step is the division between the political and social spheres, which is never justified, it is there to be accepted  a priori  because there is no reason why some people should govern and be governed other.

The second is because it is assumed that the economic sphere has to be separate, it is autonomous, often compared to a living organism to which the company has to continue feeding. We arrived at this point that seems mythological, as the market is this kind of dragon to be fed all the time because if not angry and destroys everyone, which is totally absurd because the economy should serve society, it should serve people and not vice versa.

Obviously, places of work are recovered overcoming this. First because in general there is no representation, there is only spokespersons. Decisions are made by the people concerning issues and do not delegate, which is the basis of separate political sphere. Secondly, economic decisions also taken directly those who are involved in the production process and are subject to political decisions and their social needs. Thus, this separation is exceeded in areas tendentially.

A second division of spheres that is characteristic of capitalism and bourgeois society, which has also been passed tendentiously, and is the division between intellectual and manual labor. The person who downloads the pallet truck has much to say in the assemblies as the engineer adjusting the production process led by computer, for example. It is also quite common to rotate much more work, people learn new tasks and develop new ideas, therefore there is much less traditional division of labor and particularly between manual and intellectual work.

In addition, when it comes to overcoming the division between political, economic and social spheres, we must always insist that it is a "tendency to ..." because while we are in the capitalist system would be naive to think we can overcome it completely. 

You can not just create an island ...

you can not create a happy island in the capitalist system. You can work to overcome the system, which means you need to expand. One of the things that always insisted Rimaflow was that they needed to create a new economy because the economy employers no longer works and can be successful if examples like those of Rimaflow think of a hundred, a thousand times. A happy little island will not survive, the system crush.

Many cooperatives were very idealistic in this regard and its ideals faded away with as they got older members and immersion in capitalism or cooperatives grew larger and were bought. That's why I always talk about  tendency to  create a new economy, overcoming the separation of spheres, etc. 

With globalization and the evolution of capitalism there is fragmentation or atomization of the production chain. Does this mean new challenges for workers ' control or does  q  ue this issue is more urgent?  

Yes, it presents new challenges but also new opportunities. For example, it is increasing the need for local and regional economies. Due to the current globalization capital is increasingly concentrated in ever fewer metropolitan areas, so it is becoming more urgent need to create local and regional economic systems, and maintaining wealth there where it is produced. That represents an opportunity for workers' control and more localized production and distribution.
The very fragmentation of the production chain is a very contradictory question. For example in the United States there is a tendency to return to internalizing *. Carmakers in the US are internalizing again many stages of production that had previously outsourced. This shows that internalization never had to do with saving money or be more efficient, simply trying to destroy the power of workers. So now that you have destroyed the unions in the automotive sector, which were one of the strongest unions in the United States, they are internalizing again these stages of production.

But fragmentation is not only a fragmentation of the production chain but also within the company itself, makes the collective being and fighting are much more subjective than prior acts. There were companies such as Fiat, which had 70,000 or 80,000 workers are automatically organized because 95% of them had the same contract and the same working conditions. In the same factory Fiat now we see that it has 12,000 workers who probably have 40 different contracts, from contracts partially subcontracted workers time, internalized work or seasonal work, while there are another 70,000 workers in the large region of Turin externalized working in different companies, independent companies or even self-employed.

So Fordism the factory was the entity was a "favor" to the movement of workers to homogenize workers, to create a sense class and class conflict (the class constitutes itself as conflict, It does not exist as such or derived from a certain position in the production process). 

Now work breaks and separates people, making it much more difficult to create a vision and a collective struggle, avoid returning to some people against others, because then capitalism will point to a group and tell you can not earn more because the privileges of another group that is there ... 

it becomes a race to the bottom ...
Exactly, it becomes a race to the bottom in the form of part - time or temporary work, and all these divisions among workers. It is creating a very problematic situation, from the point of view of production, so I think it's very important to take control of as many places as possible work and use both these workplaces and cooperatives are located within a political / labor / class struggle to create production lines logic. 

In Argentina, for example, a study of some 80 factories were recovered showed that more than 16% of commercial activity, sale or purchase of resources and spare parts are made to other places of recovered work and almost 2% with the solidarity economy or other forms of cooperative (3).

This means that almost 20% of what they do is in a cycle but is not totally out of capitalism, not strictly follow its rules. By having these different economic relations labor relations and social relations are based. Therefore, I think it's important that we have so many workplaces controlled by workers as possible and also to start thinking about creating production chains. 

Finally, do you want  to talk  about   on  the  page  
web   workerscontrol.net  who  helped found ?
What we try to do is create a virtual file with experiences of workers' control of all kinds of ages and in different languages. We operate in Castilian, Italian, French, English, German, Portuguese and Greek. The idea is to create a network of researchers and activists in workplaces recovered to be available as much as possible experiences because until now there was nothing similar, there were only websites or resources dedicated to specific authors or workplaces recovered specific .

Also founded as a decentralized network, there is a core group to review what may or not on the web, so that all nodes are autonomous and free to publish what they consider to be useful in the context of workers' control. It is an interesting network of collaboration between people with different political orientations, people who consider themselves communists or more anarcosindicalistas advice, others are luxemburgianas or Gramscian, other Trotskyists, others may be more obreristas, more traditional Marxist.

What all these people have in common is that we support the workers ' control and want to create access to as much information as possible. We are now in a process of redesigning the website, which will be relaunched in a few months with a new design and greater visibility. 

Not to s:
(1) You can read a second interview with Dario Azzellini on communes and workers ' control in Venezuela  here .

(2) The documentary "Occupy, Resist, Produce" dedicated to Rimaflow you can see  here . The Officine dedicated to Zero can be seen  here . 

* The term used is "insourcing" and its opposite, "outsourcing". (N. t.)
(3) Data in this  report , pages 35-36. 

Dario Azzellini is a sociologist, political scientist, writer and documentary filmmaker. He has worked and written extensively on the issue of workers ' control, including in his last two books published,  Ours to master and to own. Workers' Control from the Commune to the Present  (with Immanuel Ness) and  An Alternative Labor History: Worker Control and Workplace Democracy . He has also made a series of documentaries on this subject called "Occupy, Resist, Produce" (with Oliver Ressler). You can find more information about your work on your page  w eb . Source: 



http://www.investigaction.net/en/challenging-capitalism-through-workers-control-interview-with-dario-azzellini/ 

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