Economic Crisis Encouraging Factory Takeovers in Spain

via truthout:


This article was translated from the Spanish by Clayton Conn.


At least 40 struggling companies have been converted into cooperatives with workers assuming management. In some cases, the former owner of the company has joined the initiative.

Daniel Martinez, 33, was fired from the company where he worked in Mazarron (Murcia), like so many others who have been crushed by the crisis. Half a year later, he is once again onboard - and is an owner.

The economic crisis has led to scores of workers in Spain taking over and directly managing declining enterprises. Instead of just being content with a strike, they have dismissed owners and are trying to keep their companies-turned-cooperatives afloat.

The situation in Spain is not as dramatic and sudden as it was in Argentina a decade ago, when the crash of 2002 left thousands of workers in charge of their factories as their bosses fled. Their struggle was captured on camera by Naomi Klein and Avis Lewis in "The Take." However, the flow in Spain is constant: last April, Daniel Martinez and six colleagues created the Akami Tuna Cooperative, where they work in the same factory, and with the same machinery, that once belonged to the company that had fired them; the metal workers of Metalva joined with those of Alcaniz (Teruel), who went to work one day to find that the owner had fled; the cooperative of Zero-Pro in Porriño (Pontevedra) is developing robotics projects that were previously prepared for their boss. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/11201-economic-crisis-encouraging-factory-takeovers-in-spain