In the Wake of Neoliberalism by Faulk Karen

Author:Faulk, Karen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2013-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 4 Beds set up on Callao Street. Photo by the author.

Property Rights Versus the Right to Meaningful Equality

Embedded in this idea of work is an assertion of a particular role for government. The idea that the state must guarantee the right to dignified employment is central to the movement’s demand for further changes to the Law of Insolvency and Bankruptcy. Modifying this law has been a priority for many of the recuperadas and has been a focal point for their activism as they have sought to alter the terms that govern their possibilities upon the closure of a business or factory.21 The movement has proposed a rewriting of the law that includes the possibility for the workers to recuperate 100 percent of what is owed to them and gives priority to maintaining the source of labor. The 1995 law dictated that in the case of a bankruptcy the judge should shut down and clear out the factory or business within four months, even though this meant leaving the workers out of a job. The proposed reforms, presented for the first time in 2004, would allow workers to operate these enterprises as a cooperative immediately and without having to pass through the síndico or judge. In addition, the proposal would allow the workers to use what is owed to them to purchase the machinery, raw materials, brand names, patents, and whatever else is necessary for taking over the operation of the factory or business. A supporter of the proposed modifications has argued:

What began in the 1990s as struggles against factory closures and the defense of jobs within the neoliberal model, where the basis was financial speculation, is today consolidated after a decade within a model that puts production and work at its center. To make it so that the workers have priority in the process of liquidation and bankruptcy is to break with the perverse business practice of emptying the installation and the denial of rights and of the recourse the justice system that was and is practiced by owners in order to continue concentrating earnings and socializing losses. Giving [the workers] the possibility to acquire ownership of the means and physical spaces of production through forming a cooperative dignifies the role of the workers and recognizes their most essential rights, insuring the continuity of their jobs. (Federico Ugo, Subsecretario de Acción Cooperativas, Secretaría de Participación Ciudadana, Gobierno de la Provincia de Buenos Aires [Subsecretary of Cooperative Action and Secretary of Citizen Participation, Buenos Aires Provincial Government])22

Through symbolic demonstrations of their work and proposals such as the attempt to amend the Bankruptcy Law, the words and actions of the workers insist on their constitutionally guaranteed basic rights to economic justice in the form of dignified employment, the right to a wage that meets their basic needs, and access to social benefits such as retirement support and health care.23 In their view, the state as representative of the people is obligated to protect the rights of workers. The workers’ argument for

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