TakePossession

Buffalo Class Action Participates in Class Struggle Anarchist Conference

2009-11-12T08:52:00.000-08:00

In Detroit, on October 24-25, the organized North American anarchist movement met at the 2009 Class Struggle Anarchist Conference. The second annual conference brought together 9 different anarchist organizations that work to engage within mass movements to help provide a revolutionary anarchist perspective. In part, the conference was a space for these organizations to talk about the possibilities of a future unified anarchist organization throughout North America that could help to broaden a struggle against capitalism and for a world where every day people control the resources in their community and workers control their workplaces.

Members from Buffalo’s local anarchist-communist organization, Buffalo Class Action, participated in the conversations. They attended with an interest in learning from some of the longer-lasting anarchist organizations, their successes and challenges. These local anarchists also went with the purpose of spreading the idea of City Wide Tenants’ Unions beyond their efforts to organize such a group here in Buffalo.

At the conference they met members of many other anarchist organizations. Those organizations involved in planning the conference were: Solidarity and Defense (Michigan), Common Action (Pacific Northwest), Common Cause (Ontario), Four Star Anarchist Organization (Chicago), Miami Autonomy and Solidarity, Michigan-Minnesota Group, Northeast Federation of Anarchist Communists, and the Worker Solidarity Alliance.

There were many discussions about the future of movements of marginalized peoples in North America, and how anarchists can constructively work within those movements to help develop genuine, long-term peoples’ power. Some of the specific workshops were: Anarchists in the Struggle for Housing Justice, Worker Center Movements, Building Anarchist Groups, Intersectional Class Struggle Anarchism, Anarchists & the Workplace, Queer Anarchism, Internal Education, and the questions of Re-grouping the North American anarchist movement.

After the conference, it has become clear that there are now great ties growing between these different organizations and their efforts. There was great hope at the conference that this type of gathering can really help to bring together the organized, class struggle-oriented anarchist movement to spread their ideas, increase the influence of anarchist ideas within North American social movements, and develop a solid alternative to the regular injustices poor and marginalized people face in today’s world.

Buffalo Indymedia Center Has Returned!

2009-10-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

With hopes of rebuilding a community-based, social justice media outlet in Buffalo a public forum for the rebirth of Buffalo Indymedia was recently organized. A panel discussion with presenters from Rochester Indymedia, a former Bay Area Indymedia editor, and Buffalo activists began a powerful conversation about the possibilities and challenges that lie in the road ahead for local media activists.

Hannah Dobbz, from Pittsburgh, spoke about her involvement in the Bay Area Indymedia newspaper Fault Lines and the importance it had in garnering attention to local activist efforts. Andy Dillon and Ted Forsyth from Rochester Indymedia shared their experiences with Indy TV and a their work on distributing a print version of much of their website content. Local activists Joe Schmidbauer and Colin O'Malley talked of their inspiration to re-build local Indymedia in a way that would challenge the official story of those in power and help to build the voice of everyday people and their movements.

In coming years, Buffalo Indymedia hopes to build that voice in the region and report those stories that effect people's lives in huge ways that are often left unreported by local and national corporate media outlets. There was some discussion about the possibilities of not only maintaining the website, but also working on radio, print, and film efforts for Buffalo IMC. If you'd like to get involved in Buffalo IMC, you can register and begin writing and commenting on stories immediately on this site. To get further involved, or to inform the organizing group of an important story, please contact them at BuffaloIMC@gmail.com

Tenants' Union: Fight your landlord and win

2009-06-10T12:42:00.000-07:00

Decent housing should be an absolute right for all people. But, we continue to live in a world that homelessness, evictions of the poor, and degrading housing conditions are all too common. At the same time, we see abandoned housing left to rot. This should convince us that our housing problems come not from a lack of resources, but from a poor distribution of those resources. As is the problem with so many facets of our lives, housing is organized for private profit and not for people’s common needs. The only way for us to change these problems is to organize together and demand it. But, who do we organize and how? And, who is the enemy?

Who is the landlord?

For most working class people, owning our home isn’t a possibility and we’re often forced into a housing market with large landlords. Just as often, the tenants and the landlords have conflicting sets of interests. While we’re simply trying to hold onto a basic necessity of life, landlords hope to gain a profit from us. Sadly, the interests of the landlords are usually dominant, thanks to a system of legal and government support rarely enjoyed by tenants.

Supposedly, we have a choice. We can live wherever we’d like – if we can afford it. So the “choice” offered to those of us that live in or near poverty is between a variety of bad housing situations and homelessness. This is obviously not a choice, but a threat. Where can you go to leave an unfair housing market? Our life experiences repeatedly tell us: “You will take whatever horrible standards your income can afford, or you will have nothing.”

Not all working class people are renters and many in poor cities, have managed to buy their own home. While at times, we may rent out a room or floor of our house, we generally have more in common with tenants than the large landlords. Homeowners are very often tenants themselves of the largest of landlords – the banks. Even if the mortgage has been paid, working class homeowners occupy a very small and isolated part of the housing market, where much larger landlords have real control. These homeowners may be in a more comfortable immediate position. But, they’re also in a very precarious situation and could easily lose their home in any number of ways.

On the other hand large landlords own apartment buildings or dozens of houses throughout the city. They use our basic need for housing as a tool to create profits, often massive, for themselves. Their interest is to make the greatest possible profit for themselves. That means keeping repairs to a minimum and charging as much rent as they believe they can.

Having little power individually, renters are often on the losing end of this conflict. Homelessness, evictions, and poor living standards are clear signs of our current weak position.

Tenant Power

The beauty of our situation, is that collectively we have far greater power than our landlords. Our rent is the source of their wealth. For them to continue their life of luxury without work they need us to continue living in their apartments, continue paying their rent, and keep accepting the living conditions that they choose for us. Our landlords are absolutely reliant upon us. They rely on the hope that we will never understand our true strength.

The power of the working class has the same limits in the struggle for decent and affordable housing as it does in the workplace – it’s collective. When we struggle alone in isolation the landlord has nearly absolute power. Our power is only real power when we get together with others in similar situations and organize for justice.

Tenants Union

Just as we would organize in our workplace against exploitative bosses, we propose the organization of a Citywide Tenants’ Union to organize our power to assert that decent, affordable housing is a right for all people. A City Wide Tenants’ Union should commit itself to organize all tenants of the large landlords in our city to aggressively demand our necessary rights to good quality housing. The tools of a serious Tenants’ Union are incredibly powerful:

Public Pressure: Through rallies, media events, and public meetings we can hurt the image of our landlords. A bad public image can hurt their ability to find new renters and force public demand for investigations of the conditions in their properties.
Eviction Blockades: In the case that any of the members of the tenants’ union are being unjustly evicted or evicted in retaliation for their organizing efforts, other members of the union should organize a blockade of that member’s house or apartment. With the tenants’ union, the normally disempowering experience of being evicted becomes a show of the power of solidarity. The act that we usually suffer in isolation becomes a moment of true community as serious attention is brought to the eviction.
Direct Action: In the case that our organized public pressure doesn’t solve the problems that we are having with our landlords, we could target them more aggressively by actively disrupting their ability to continue business. Occupation of company offices and disrupting the visits of new tenants are a couple of possibilities that may force our landlords to listen our demands.
Rent Strike: The greatest source of our power with landlords is actually one of the easiest for us to use. A collective refusal to pay rent until demands are met should bring even the most abusive landlords to the table. If an individual were to refuse to pay rent, the landlord would have an easy time fighting back. But when all of their tenants refuse to pay rent, they quickly find themselves outmatched.
Solidarity: An injury to one is an injury to all. When we begin to fight our landlords, we have to know that we aren’t doing so alone, and this is the purpose of our union. Having a Tenant Union would mean that none of us struggle in isolation. Just because one group of tenants has won a fight against their landlord doesn’t mean that they are no longer part of the struggle. They will provide resources, experience, and volunteers to the effort of organizing other renters throughout the city.

Landlords Need Us, We Don’t Need Them

In the struggle against our landlords, there is one important realization. Our landlords don’t do anything for us that we aren’t capable of doing for ourselves. We are more than capable of organizing ourselves to make repairs and maintain the buildings where we live. There are cooperative housing associations throughout the world that show us proof of our ability to live without landlords. So, if we can organize ourselves to maintain our housing needs, what do landlords do? That is exactly the point. Landlords exist purely to take rent from us.

As we develop true power as renters, we will realize that the real battle is for a system of housing that recognizes our right to decent, affordable place to live no matter what. This means getting rid of a world of for-profit housing. No one should exploit a system of vulgar inequality to create massive profits from our need to survive. We know that these inequalities will only exist as long as we permit them. So let’s begin the struggle for just housing today!

Poverty: The Struggle for Justice

2009-03-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

As the working class and unemployed, we are the victims of theft everyday. We continually live on the edge of survival, hoping that we may someday, through hard work and perseverance, achieve the simple dignity of security. At the same time, a few elites enjoy a life of luxury without worry for themselves or their children. It’s a vulgar arrangement that we all know to be unjust in which they gain their wealth. We spend precious hours of our lives working to produce all of the wealth of the world only to see it stolen with a pitiful portion returned to us in the form of wages. Poverty forced on the unemployed and homeless is needed by those in power to threaten working people into accepting this terrible deal.

This bleak state isn’t one that we have to endure forever. The incredible truth is that those of us that are the victims of this theft have much greater power than the thieves, if only we’d learn how to use it. Let’s begin by better understanding the tools of the elite so that we can build our power to create genuine change - our only real hope for a life that is more than meager survival.

The Great Theft

Many of us know the system that allows the rich to rob the poor – its capitalism! Capitalism is the foolish system that puts profit before people and promotes the ridiculous belief that if we compete against one another, it will create the greatest outcome for us all. Under this system, just a few people control massive amounts of property and wealth that make up our economy. These people own the factories, hotels, banks, shopping malls, etc. where we work. Unfortunately for them, simply owning a workplace doesn’t produce any wealth. People are needed to labor in that workplace. This group, the working class, is in a desperate situation- they have nothing but their labor to sell. Property owners use this desperation to make their money; and in order to survive, the worker will produce wealth for their new boss instead of themselves. As we work, we can see the real wealth we create. Service workers will put huge stacks of money into a register. Factory workers watch as the product of their labor is sold. Then, the boss will return a very small portion of the wealth we produced for him and call it our wage. The larger portion is kept and used to buy and control more property to create more wealth to steal from more workers and so on. This repulsive cycle maintains the power of the wealthy and forces more working people into wage slavery, where the great potential of our lives is lost.

Robbery Requires Threat

As all workers understand, working isn’t a choice. We are forced into working by a lifetime of constant threat. This threat is the “choice” between poverty, starvation and homelessness or wasting our days creating wealth for those at the top. And we know it isn’t an empty threat. We see crushing and brutal poverty around us all the time. These threats come from hundreds of fronts and we are constantly shown the reality of such threats. Will we be able to feed our children? Can we go to a hospital when we need? Could we end up homeless? How can we afford heating in winter? Can we educate ourselves and our children? These questions beat us like the waves of an incoming hurricane. We watch as our brothers and sisters get pulled under and drown until even those in the middle class are forced into constant fear that they may fall into the coming surge.

If the rich are to hold onto their armies of poor ready to work for their crumbs, this threat must be maintained. A certain level of poverty is required of any capitalist society. While we have won some advances to soften the blow of poverty, politicians and businessmen have worked together to ensure that services available for the poor don’t actually rid the world of poverty. We are purposefully deprived of the tools to empower ourselves and our communities to solve our own problems. Fearing independence from their system of theft, we are kept in a stasis of lifelong struggle.

Hope Begins Within

How long will this inequality exist for us? The answer is the same as it has always been: for as long as we permit it. We as common people throughout the world have a power of spirit that is anything but common. Facing a callous onslaught of insult and corruption from bankers, bosses and government lackeys, we still maintain pride and courage that brings us into the next day. Despite the forces of oppression that surround us, we fight to raise our families with optimism to see better days. In our dance, music, art, families, and friendships we see the great force of our common spirit.

If we ever hope to achieve a life of true equality, we need to understand that spirit alone will not move us forward. Common purpose and collective action are the foundations of social change. We as working people must realize individuals acting alone will not solve problems of poverty and exploitation. It’s working together in a common struggle that will free us all. Those of us in work need to organize ourselves into a labor movement, joining and actively participating in our unions. Those of us that are unemployed need to form our own organizations capable of truly destroying poverty. We need to join or form community organizations that will guarantee us quality housing, transportation, health care, education, and all of the other rights of a liberated people.

There is undeniable power in the hands of organized people. Especially, when those organizations are run democratically and aggressively pursue an uncompromising goal of absolute freedom and equality. These are the realistic first steps that we have to take on the course to future free from the theft of the bosses and the oppressive state that grants them power. As has always been the case, we will win what we are willing to fight for!

Resistance and Recovery Speaking Tour comes to Buffalo

2009-02-13T20:28:00.000-08:00

In the most stirring recent victory of the US labor movement, workers at the Chicago Republic Windows and Doors militantly fought the company as it closed. On the last day of scheduled work, these members of UE Local 1110 chose a tactic from a different era of labor and occupied the factory. In six days they won an agreement with the company and its financier, Bank of America, which gave the workers $1.75 million in severance and vacation pay. In these six days the Republic workers provided an inspiring example of how organized workers can respond to the layoffs and cutbacks forced upon them in a recession. Since this victory, they’ve organized a speaking tour to share their story with activists and workers throughout the country.

The UE Comes Home

On February 12^th this tour made a stop in Buffalo. Organized by the Coalition for Economic Justice, the event had around 100 people in attendance with people from People United for Sustainable Housing, United Auto Workers, the Teamsters, Buffalo Class Action, and University at Buffalo Students Against Sweatshops.

It was Emanuel Fried who started the night off. Fried is an activist and playwright from the Buffalo area and former organizer with the UE that had once been forced to appear before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. He reminded each of us of Buffalo’s legacy as the birthplace of the militant and member-run UE. Fried spoke about the important role the UE has consistently played in reminding the US labor movement that their role is to take powerful and daring collective action to win the demands of their members rather than treat their members like clients of a service organization.

Chicago Shows Us How It’s Done

After screening a brief documentary about their experiences, Ron Bender, a Republic worker spoke about the UE’s most recent reminder that a real labor union is one that fights. He spoke of his experiences organizing the occupation with other rank and file members, how workers maintained a 24-hour watch over the factory equipment, and how the community came out to support their efforts. Through his words and actions we were reminded that it’s in uncompromisingly and courageously asserting our demands with a willingness to take aggressive action that will assure the broader working class the victories that we need. In the first days of negotiations the Bank of America made it clear that they were a business that needed to make money and that the Republic workers were not their concern. However, in only a couple of days Bank of America had completely different priorities, even saying that the well-being of the Republic workers was a primary concern. This change in priorities comes from a change in power dynamic, as more people came out to fight alongside the UE local.

This fighting mentality didn’t appear from nowhere. It is no coincidence that the first union to act this boldly in the interest of its members is a union clearly controlled by its rank-and-file. As Ron said, “The UE really is the rank-and-file union.” Strategic decisions leading up to and throughout the occupation were made democratically by members on the shop floor. This ownership of the organization that members feel is an essential ingredient in the militancy that followed, empowering workers to take greater risks than they normally would and allowing them to trust that their actions wouldn’t be used to sell them out at any point in the struggle.

Moving Forward as a Movement

Throughout the evening it was repeatedly stressed that the importance of the Republic workers victory is not simply to a single factory, but an example to an entire movement. We are in a critical moment for working people throughout the world and we need to act with the serious urgency that these moments deserve. Spreading their story now becomes an essential task. Every militant throughout the country should know the story of UE Local 1110. In our organizations we should be organizing discussions of the struggle at Republic, distributing their documentary outside of workplaces threatened with layoffs, and organizing rank-and-file resistance groups within our workplaces. UE Local 1110 workers have offered an inspiration to us that can help to unify the left and thrust existing worker discontent into a commanding movement of aggressive collective action. Now, the responsibility falls on the rest of us to continue the struggle that they have so powerfully pushed forward.

How Republic Workers Occupied Their Plant

2009-02-03T17:35:00.000-08:00

By Leah Fried, UE Organizer. From Labor Notes

December 5 was to be the last day of work at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. But managers soon realized that workers would not go quietly: they had voted to occupy the factory.

Members of United Electrical Workers (UE) Local 1110, they’d made plans to scatter throughout the plant, chain themselves to machines, and risk arrest. This is the story of how they did it.

The occupation that won workers their back pay and the admiration of union members around the world didn’t happen out of the blue. It was the culmination of years of struggle to build a democratic, fighting union able to take on the boss.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

In early 2004 workers at Republic suffered under a gangster “union” that represented the boss more than the workers. Chicago is one of the last bastions of these old-school outfits that help companies keep workers down.

Workers had their wages frozen at $8 an hour for three years and had seen hundreds of their co-workers fired for no good reason. Discrimination, unfair treatment, and low wages were the hallmark of their former union, Novelty and Production Workers Local 16. So workers sought a change.

First they approached several worker centers, which arranged a meeting with UE organizers. Workers were impressed with UE’s record of democratic, aggressive unionism. In November 2004 they organized an election, joined UE, and went on to win their best contract ever.

In the contract fight of 2005, workers regularly wore UE buttons and stickers with contract demands. They organized marches to the boss’s office, practiced picketing, and voted and publicly vowed to strike if necessary. A contract was won on the eve of the planned strike, with raises of $1.75 immediately and improvements to working conditions and benefits. This struggle set the tone for years to come.

Unity, however, wasn’t automatic. Democratic unionism doesn’t exist without some growing pains.

Republic workers are a diverse workforce: 80 percent Latino, 20 percent Black, and 25 percent women. Hotly contested elections for stewards and officers, intense debate, divisions based on race or gender—all took place in this local.

Leaders had to work hard to build black-brown unity, overcome factionalism, and be willing to lose some debates (such as one over a dues increase) in order to create a local in which all the workers felt ownership.

Some leaders of the occupation had campaigned against each other in elections and each had their own following. But in the end, the workers were able to come together every time they needed to fight the boss.

UE had also been dedicated to building alliances in the community and the labor movement. Years of work to forge links with worker centers, religious groups, community organizations, and immigrants rights organizations laid the base for solidarity.

Rank-and-file members’ longstanding participation in solidarity activities, Jobs with Justice, and immigrant rights marches in Chicago helped local leaders get to know UE better. And regular participation in national political action helped lawmakers know UE as well.

PLANNING AHEAD

UE began planning for a possible plant occupation in November, when machinery started disappearing from the plant. Local leaders were prepared for the worst-case scenarios.

We bought chains with locks and organized a core group committed to civil disobedience if necessary. We knew it might come down to getting arrested. Workers understood they had to keep the company’s assets from leaving the factory.

As workers met again and again to talk over what might happen and organize for a fight, we developed a strategy that focused on Bank of America. The bank, which had just received $25 billion in bailout funds, would decide whether Republic would continue to receive financing.

UE reached out to allies and elected officials to mobilize public pressure on the bank, including a big picket of its offices in Chicago two days before the occupation. Members of Congress, most significantly Representative Luis Gutierrez, pressed the bank to negotiate with the union.

The occupation was launched after the company didn’t show up to a meeting with the bank and UE. Workers came to their last day of work and decided unanimously not to leave until their demands were met: vacation pay, 60 days’ severance as the law required, and two months’ health insurance.

The company was informed of the workers’ vote to occupy the factory. They knew they faced more than 200 angry and organized workers who were not about to leave quietly.

Management called the police, but at the same time our longstanding allies mobilized hundreds of supporters, via urgent alerts and phone calls, to come to the plant.

By this time the press had become a steady presence. The idea of the whole world seeing 200 workers dragged out by the cops in front of a supportive crowd rallying outside the factory—it all helped the company decide not to fight the union.

The police left, and the chains stayed in their bags. The workers had taken the plant.

As word of the factory takeover spread, solidarity started pouring in, from unions and community, religious, immigrant rights, and civil rights organizations. The messages visitors left on posters in the plant lobby, the donations, and letters from all over the world were key in strengthening the workers’ resolve.

But most important was the unity of the workers, who despite their differences, rose to the occasion and showed incredible strength.

The day the occupation began the local executive board and stewards organized their co-workers into three shifts, round the clock. UE organizers also took shifts (although those tended to last 20 hours).

Rules were agreed upon and posted in the cafeteria: No alcohol, smoking, or drugs. Non-UE members, unless immediate family, were not allowed onto the factory floor.

Committees for welcoming and security at the door, clean-up, food, and patrols to keep the assets safe were staffed in eight-hour shifts. At the beginning of each shift all the workers and organizers would meet to give updates, take volunteers for each committee, and review what would happen that day.

Workers kept busy with rallies and press interviews outside the plant in addition to their committee responsibilities. Children accompanied their parents, doing homework and playing amid the adults’ work. Donated food, blankets, and two TVs (one for news, the other for sports) were shared equally by all.

After six long days, the lead committee made up of shop leaders and UE reps came back with a settlement that workers voted enthusiastically to accept. We had won all our demands and then some.

Now, we are working to reopen the factory with all the workers back on the job. But we know that something beyond jobs or money owed has been won. We have inspired millions to know that the world is what we fight to make it, that we can win.

Buffalo Solidarity Demonstration with UE Local 1110

2008-12-10T19:02:00.000-08:00

Today there was a rally in front of the downtown Bank of America in solidarity with the workers of UE Local 1110, who are occupying their factory in protest of previously announced layoffs. The protest was attended by members of the Western New York Peace Center, Buffalo State Students for Peace, the International Action Center, and Buffalo Class Action. It was one event in a series of nationwide solidarity demonstrations outside of Bank of the Americas. Here are a few pictures from the event.

Victory to the Workers Occupying Republic Windows and Doors

2008-12-09T23:31:00.000-08:00

“My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production.”

-Lucy Parsons

On December 5^th, workers at the Republic Windows and Doors factory – members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) Local 1110 – were told by owners that the plant would be closing. In the midst of a global economic crisis, this isn’t an unfamiliar story. Despite the billions of dollars in bailout money that Bank of America had received it told Republic owners that they wouldn’t be giving them the loan needed to pay the 75 days severance pay legally required.

It’s at this point that the story departs from the familiar. Rather than accept the factory closure and enter what would undoubtedly be a prolonged legal battle for back wages, workers in UE 1110 defiantly began a sit-down strike, occupying the factory. Throughout the world people began to take notice as workers in the United States began to militantly and collectively resist the side-effects of the economic crisis, using tactics that haven’t been seen in the US labor movement in decades. Statements of solidarity from social movements and political organizations throughout the world are flooding into the Chicago factory that has now been constantly occupied for over five days.

We in the American working class have to recognize the urgency of these moments. This factory occupation has become the first collective defiant act to fight the layoffs and cutbacks that we are facing as the economic hard times get shifted onto the same people that always suffer when the economy contracts. A victory at this plant could serve as the inspirations to workers facing layoffs throughout the country. With this capacity to set the tone for the course of this recession, it is essential that these workers win their demands. And that will only happen with the active solidarity of other working people around the world.

However, to truly recognize the importance of this moment, we need to begin to think beyond it. We need to be there to spread the story of the Republic Windows and Doors workers and their courage. The inspiration granted to us by UE 1110 needs to be used to make this kind of militant resistance to layoffs and cutbacks the standard. Imagine the Big 3 auto companies facing similar sit-down strikes to those they faced in the 1930’s. Imagine that during one of those factory occupations, the workers decide to continue producing.

It’s amazing to me that only one year after returning from Argentina, I am already writing about a worker-occupied factory in the United States. What’s more amazing is how similar this story sounds to those told to me by workers at FaSinPat and other recuperated businesses. Just as in Chicago, workers there said that they were occupying the factory to guard against the selling of the machinery and products held within. They were watching this property because it was their only assurance that they would eventually get what was owed. In many cases, workers decided that rather than wait to salvage the left over products to help make their severance pay that they no longer wanted to lose their jobs in the first place. Instead, they decided that the factory itself was acceptable compensation for their lost wages and began to self-manage the factories and resume production.

They had taken the first steps toward a truly liberated society where bosses and exploitation are replaced with community and cooperation. Let’s begin to organize toward that same world. It starts with ensuring a victory at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, Illinois.

Housings Rights Movement Demands Community Control of Resources

2008-10-10T16:06:00.000-07:00

Buffalo is a city with a shrinking population, a third of the city living in poverty, with 1 in 5 homes in the city vacant. We are consistently hearing about the reality facing Buffalo. Generally it’s told to us in a hopeless narrative, with no expectations of city or state leadership planning to help and no other alternatives available. However, in recent years a new narrative has begun that makes community control central.

People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH) has been organizing for the last three years on the west side of Buffalo, a neighborhood powerfully impacted by poverty and abandoned housing. Through the use of community assemblies and meetings they have developed an anti-poverty housing platform. This platform demands that the city begin to reinvest in its poorer neighborhoods using a variety of tools that can begin to address rampant and devastating poverty. The plan that the neighborhood developed includes:

The city should provide funding to rehabilitate 100 houses, identified by community organizations, each year.

The city should provide funding to weatherize 400 houses per year to help reduce often obscene heating costs and unsustainable energy use.

The city should demolish the worst 100 abandoned houses per year. Again, these properties should be identified by community organizations.

To help alleviate poverty in the city, at least 50% of the workforce on each project should live in the neighborhood they are helping to revitalize.

This platform has been in direct opposition to plan put forward by the mayor which puts funding towards demolishing over 5,000 properties in 5 years. This “5 in 5” plan had been the plan for redevelopment coming from city hall for over two years, until Wednesday October 8^th, the same day as a planned march on City Hall demanding that the PUSH anti-poverty platform become city policy.

On that day, after two years of community organizing and struggle, the mayor gave in before the rally had even taken place. In the rain, 200 community members from the west side and throughout the city gathered to celebrate their victory against city hall and the mayor. At the last minute, the march plan changed to head to the state and federal buildings to announce the continuation of our community struggle. Community members spoke out against the $700 billion financial bailout and demanded that state and federal actors begin to address the needs of our neighborhoods rather than the needs of the rich.

As the rally came to a close, I left energized from a victory that helps to remind us of the power that an organized people can have. Victories like these are important not only for the positive nature of the gains won, but to help provide momentum for the much longer struggle for true social and economic justice.

This moment represents a critical point for anarchist ideals in the city as well. After months of organizational development and activity, Buffalo Class Action members acted as an important part of the rally planning and outreach. For the rally itself the group had committed to turning out a group of 25 and exceeded that number. Participation in this rally has provided an important step in showing the potential for specifically ideological and revolutionary organization as a part of building and strengthening our broader social movements.

I hope that we can continue to grow and gain legitimacy as a relevant and positive force in the social movements of our city. In doing so, the previous narratives of hopelessness can begin to be replaced by a radical narrative of using popular direct action to gain community control of the wealth that rightly belongs to all of us. Maybe then we can move from alleviating the impacts of poverty to destroying it all-together.

The Beginnings of Buffalo Class Action

2008-09-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

During the beginnings of 2008, a couple of us in Buffalo, NY felt there was a need to begin building specifically anarchist organization in our city. With some experience in local social movements in the second poorest city in the nation, we felt there was a need to start having some explicit conversations about where the efforts of these movements were taking us in the long-run. In a city where capitalism has so spectacularly failed and over 1/3 of the population lives in poverty, a revolutionary perspective seemed essential. After about eight months of effort to build an organization, it seems like time to document the work that went into our emergence, the success we’ve had, and the challenges we’re facing.

Experiences with Ideological Organizations

Of course, the idea of a specific ideological organization isn’t new and in my time with local and national social movements there had been experiences with that style of organization. Those experiences were mostly negative and that context is important to understanding why so many people don’t participate in ideological organizations. So often ideological organizing comes from self-alienating subcultures or counter-productive dogmatists.

There were previous attempts to build an anarchist collective in Buffalo that exhibited both of these problems. These attempts were incredibly short lived. In each case, the only decisions made were about the name of the group. These groups had very little political agreement. Some members argued that we needed to work with different movements in the city. Others argued that those movements were reformist and not worth our time. Others argued that we shouldn’t even be an organization that makes decisions. In the end they only had about two months of debate at meetings and contributed nothing to the strength of movements in our city.

Despite identifying as an anarchist for years, these were the only types of ideological organizations that I felt existed. Myself and a number of other anarchists spent our time working in an individual capacity in a number of local groups, rarely talking about the ideas that brought us to participate in those movements.

Argentina, Social Insertion, and Inspiration

Throughout 2007 I was lucky enough to be able to spend the year in Buenos Aires, Argentina watching and learning from the social and political movements there. I had gone with the intention of understanding the strength and radical nature of the labor movement, which in some places had expropriated their workplaces and in others were running powerful and militant struggles against the bosses. It was quickly apparent that much of the movements’ radical nature had come from constant and direct participation on the part of a number of revolutionary ideological organizations. Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists all offered valuable solidarity to the struggles around them while also (usually) humbly offering potential directions for a group of workers in struggle.

One of the groups that seemed to be active was the Red Libertaria (Libertarian Network) of Buenos Aires. They were an especifista, anarchist-communist organization and had coherent politics that clearly spoke to people struggling throughout the city. They engaged in frequent political education work, holding discussion series relevant to both anarchism as a theory and a path for effective struggle. They were often seen around town engaged in propaganda work, setting up regular literature tables throughout the city and distributing their paper, Hijos del Pueblo. And, most importantly to me, they were actively engaged in productive organizing with neighborhood assemblies, worker struggles, student organizing, and recuperated businesses.

It was witnessing the strength of both social and political movements and how they effectively strengthened each other through effective social insertion that inspired my interest in building specifically revolutionary anarchist organization back home.

Buffalo Anarchist Discussion Series

From past experience in Buffalo organizing, it was clear that in building an anarchist organization would require some serious political education. Social movement organizers would need help seeing the possibilities of how a serious ideological organization could benefit their work and local anarchists would need to develop a stronger sense of what anarchism meant and how anarchists should organize. To begin to develop this understanding and try to find a base of people to build an organization, myself and a couple of other anarchist organizers in the city decided to organize a discussion series based on the model I had seen in Buenos Aires.

The discussion would be seven weeks long. The first week, we would introduce the discussion series and its purpose to develop concrete organization with a stronger level or political education, hand out the 75 page readers, and watch an inspirational movie. The next week would be the first of 5 weeks of thematic discussions. Participants would be expected to come having read about 10 pages of articles on that weeks theme and discuss. The themed discussions each week were: Anarchism What Is it and What Isn’t It, Why Anarchist Specific Organization, Anarchism and Class Struggle, Anarchism and Systems of Social Oppression, and Platformist vs. Synthesis organization.

The first week had over 60 people come through and pick up the readers and by the first week of discussion attendance dropped to about 20 and stayed more or less stable for the rest of the series. The space reserved for the discussion only allowed us two hours of discussion and each week a number of participants would head to a bar together and continue discussion for another hour or two. It was clear there was some energy and excitement to discuss these ideas. After the 5 weeks of energetic discussion it was evident that the average level of political analysis in the room had clearly gone up and some basis for anarchist organization was emerging.

The last week of the series was for participants to bring in proposals for the next step of the anarchist movement in Buffalo. One of those proposals was to form a platformist, anarchist-communist organization that would actively engage in social insertion with local movements. This has been the proposal that was the most actively accepted.

Building Buffalo Class Action

After the discussion series a group of just over 10 of us came together to begin building our organization. Six weeks were spent developing Aims and Principles, a structure, and a plan of action. We read the politics of NEFAC, Common Cause, Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front, Red Libertaria de Buenos Aires, and the Worker Solidarity Movement to help us develop our own Aims and Principles. We developed a local constitution putting power in the hands of a monthly general assembly. We elected officers (a general secretary, a treasurer, and organizers for each of the three committees).

It was felt that for the organization to be valuable to strengthening local struggles that we would need to act toward three different goals. We needed to continue our efforts at both internal and community-wide educational efforts. An education committee was organized to take on this task. It was made clear that education should include discussion of theory, historical and current movements, and developing organizing skills. We developed a propaganda committee that would focus on development of literature distribution as well as helping to reform Buffalo Indymedia. It was also essential that we had some coordinated effort in local movements. We decided that the place we could most effectively engage in local class struggle was to participate in the struggle for housing happening on the west side of the city and a housing rights committee was organized to determine how best to participate.

In the beginning of July, we felt we had enough of a basis for our organization to hold a public general interest meeting. Posters were put up throughout the city to announce our presence. In the back room of a local radical book store, we gathered with food and presented the basis of our organization and the membership requirements.

Successes and Challenges

Since our public meeting we have grown to just over 15 members. We are actively engaging in a local housing rights organization. A literature table with a number of pamphlets has been developed and printed. Tabling around town is just now beginning and a website is developing as we go. Our general assemblies now include internal educational components and we have held important internal conversations about systems of social oppression.

We are definitely facing challenges, but working to collectively take them on. We are still working on understanding the nuanced world of social insertion and how exactly we should be participating in a community organization while simultaneously belonging to an organized anarchist group. So much of the building of the group took part through mostly theoretical discussions, and now that we are actively organizing we’re finding that much of the group has little organizing experience. There will definitely be a need to train some of our members in how to effectively organize. At the same time, we are a relatively small organization that is split into three different committees. This means that each of those committees is very small at the moment and this has made accomplishing some of the goals we’ve set for ourselves difficult. The propaganda committee has already had to table rebuilding Buffalo Indymedia until we have the capacity to do that well. With most of our activity going towards supporting a housing rights group, we have done little in the way of specific outreach and events for Buffalo Class Action itself.

These challenges are faced by organizations all the time, and some of us have experience in effectively responding to them. We are confident that we can address these challenges within our group, begin to offer an example of positive ideological organizing, and offer increasingly credible revolutionary ideas and directions to the movements in our city.

Fundraising Campaign for the Red Libertaria of Buenos Aires

2008-05-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

I am hoping to help raise some money for the Red Libertaria, and Anarchist-Communist organization in Buenos Aires that I was close to during my time there. They helped to inform a lot of my organizing since returning to the US and I would like in whatever way possible to help repay that and to begin building closer relationship between anarchists in the US and those in Argentina. The PayPal account below is my personal one, at the end of the month, I'll then pass on everything in there to them through the channels they are establishing.

From Javier:

"Well, let me introduce this quickly. We are one of the anarkismo.net groups, we have been working in buenos aires argentina for 5 years now and have managed to reach a nice development. We are currently organized in three groups in different zones coordinating our overall politics and activities. We concentrate currently mostly in propaganda efforts and solidarity with popular struggles and social insertion (that is, to participate from the inside you have to be there) but we also do work in workers (mostly inside andother libertarian syndicalist grouping called CoSiBa), neighbours (mostly in one group called MTD Ezeiza in the Dario Santillan Popular Front) and students (this is our more developed area of work due to many comrades who are young and studying, we work inside wider libertarian groups in some faculties and colleges) unions. We have supported many struggles both form the inside and the outside (railway workers, tire manufacturing, subway, textile, autoparts, for a students bus fare, political prisioners, for the univerity democratization, and a long etc). We have hosted many cycles of workshops on anarchist ideas (self-management, anarchism, spanish revolution, anarchism in the seventies, etc). We have edited 12 numbers of our newsheet (8 sheets most of the time, a thousand or more papers per edition, it varies) called Sons of the People. We have participated in marches with a column with banners and a basic security, etc. You can look at our website if you understand spanish or ask if you want. We are currently trying to gather money to build infraesctructure to potentiate our forces (photocopier, computer, etc). If you can give us a hand please contact us.

From May 1st to May 31st of 2008
First Funding Campaign of the Red Libertaria of Buenos Aires

It will be all throughout May 2008 * It will consist in the sale of bonds and funding activities * It is an opportunity for every comrade to collaborate with the construction of an anarchism insert in social struggles

Buenos Aires, 01/05/08 – The comrades grouped in the Red Libertaria announce with great enthusiasm the imminent launch of the first Funding Campaign of our Group.

It will extend all throughout May this year, being an excellent chance for close comrades, that due to various reasons cannot actively participate of this construction, to give their share in the struggle to revitalize an anarchism insert in class struggle, objective that guides our militancy.

Concretely: Turing this month, the Red Libertaria will resort to your compromise with the construction of an anarchist movement oriented towards social change. Your contribution comrade, big or small, adds up to the total. And most importantly, reaffirms us in the road of class independence, of self-management and coherence that gives not accepting a cent of our enemies.

Comrade, the advance of anarchism requires the support of all ¡Don't lose this chance to collaborate with this campaign!

http://inventati.org/rlba - redlibertaria@riseup.net "

Lessons from Argentina: Education

2008-03-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

While I’ve often tended towards an anti-academic stance within my organizing work, there can be no doubt that educational efforts are an essential part of our organizing activities – both internally and externally. What I found in Argentina was a movement that wasn’t afraid of being intellectual. However, they were intellectual in a way that was empowering rather than alienating. Participatory methods of education were used to simultaneously empower people to discuss and learn while ensuring that the discussions would have a real connection to people’s lives. It was clear, even in vaguely themed discussions, that the collective education process was having an impact on organizing work. The consensus seemed to be that action without reflection is pointless activism while reflection without action is purely alienating intellectualism.

Themes

Much of my time in Argentina was spent participating in the events of the Red Libertaria, a Buenos Aires anarchist organization. So it’s no surprise that a good deal of the educational work was ideological in theme. However, what was surprising to me was that I actually felt the conversations were worthwhile to long-term movement building. In the United States, I had often felt that ideological movements spoke in theoretical circles and built dogmatic organizations that didn’t really do anything. But ideology wasn’t discussed as lines in the sand to identify ourselves as one brand or the other. Ideology was discussed as a history of struggle and with the potential of being an example playbook in our own struggles.

I participated in two discussions that did this: Anarchism in the Spanish Revolution, and the thoughts of Malatesta. While both could have been purely intellectual discussions, they both were used as examples to consider the building of local movements. Anarchism in the Spanish revolution spoke about the needs and possibilities of organizing rural movements and the successes of self-management (a much less theoretical discussion in Argentina right now). While discussion the thought of Malatesta, much of the discussion revolved around working with unions and working class organizations as an explicit anarchist and how that should happen.

While these discussions of history and ideology generally were related to current issue and debates, it was often important for those discussions to be explicit. With the Red Libertaria this meant adding a discussion about the upcoming elections – and their anti-electoral campaign – to the end of the thoughts of Malatesta series. There was also considerable discussion about the current workplace recuperation movement in Argentina in regards to more theoretical conversations about self-management.

Much of the discussion revolved around this reflection of our direction and the larger plan for our movements, but there was also some discussion that explicitly focused on how to go about organizing and the skills necessary to do so. An especially exciting series that I had participated in was called “Experiences in Horizontal Organization: Challenges and Possibilities”. The discussion spoke of organizing student movements, workers, media, and more. There were participants from the unemployed workers movements and the militant media movement of Buenos Aires. This very tangible discussion of movement organization used historical, ideological, and current articles and movements to discuss the on-going movement building within Argentina.

Method

My experiences, which I believe are common, in the US have shown a largely lacking system of education around ideas, issues, and skills that are essential knowledge if we hope for our movements to grow. Educational efforts around a particular theme are often organized into a onetime teach-in. In one night a teach-in would be organized around a subject that is usually incredibly broad (ie. international labor exploitation, corporate globalization, etc.). In two hours, there is the hope that we can explain the history, current analysis, and what people can do to fight the problem. Of course, that generally means two hours absolutely packed with information. It becomes difficult to find any way to present the overload of information in any format other than a lecture, which in the end bores half of the people in attendance and overrides any hopes of real participatory discussion. While, these are often used to inspire people to take action around a particular cause, they rarely engage the audience to activate themselves rather than remain passive observers.

The educational series’ in Argentina were designed to give important topics the time they required to adequately address their depth. Each series was one night every week (for one, every other week) for five to six weeks. To break down the broader topics, each week came with a specific theme to pull out of the issue at hand. The organizers developed a series of relevant readings to go along with each week’s discussion so that the participants were all on a more even level to really discuss the topics as a collective group.

The readers that came along with the discussion series helped to create a powerful blending of participatory and informational styles of education. The basis of the actual series was discussion, but it was expected that people had at least a minor understanding of the topics they were to discuss. They were also useful as simple pamphlets that could be distributed in the future to those that may have missed the discussion series. Or, they could be used to organize the same series again with new participants.

In terms of organizational development, the series helped to educate both internally and externally. Veteran organizers would learn side by side with new or potential members. In their efforts to activate and educate the new members, core members of the organization also found a better understanding of their views, contributing greatly to a real sense of ideological and tactical unity.

More important than any particular topics we could educate one another about however, is one idea that needs to permeate our work and discussions: the world is not static. By organizing discussions in a way that encourage people to step up and participate we can help to show our communities that we are capable of self-educating around topics that are truly of importance to us, while pushing people to prove that they themselves aren’t static. As people recognize their own capacity to continually change they’ll begin to realize the same about the world around them and will find some hope to begin building the world they want to see.

Lessons from Argentina: Cultural Resistance

2008-02-27T19:25:00.000-08:00

Revolutionary politics had a nearly constant presence throughout Buenos Aires. In great part this had to do with the active building of revolutionary culture and art. The arts were considered as important a part of revolutionary struggle as development of theory or organizing of actions. Music, theatre, film, visual arts, etc. were all a consistent part of organizing working class struggles. This had a great number of positive impacts beyond the obvious – making our movements a lot less boring.

Cultural movements helped to build the more concrete organizing of expropriated workplaces, community groups, and political organizations. In my time in Argentina, this was most clearly seen in our organizing in defense of the Hotel BAUEN; one of the many worker owned and controlled businesses of Argentina. Numerous musicians came out to play concerts as fundraisers for the campaign to stop the eviction of the cooperative. A street concert and barbeque was held outside of an expropriated print shop as both a fundraiser and informational session about how to help out in the fight. The play Maquinando was put on in the spaces of a number of community assemblies. This play tells the story of a group of workers going through the process of taking over their workplace. On the last day of the threatened eviction, workers and community supporters had said they would surround the building in an attempt to resist. Popular folk musician Leon Gieco offered to headline a concert along with a number of other musicians to help bring in more people. This event helped to mix the concrete need for the action along with a vibrant and cultural atmosphere.

The inspirational impact can’t be overshadowed by the purely concrete assistance offered by these artistic movements. Plays, music, and films are capable of inspiring people on a much different level than speeches or rallies. Maquinando shows the truly dramatic nature of taking over one’s workplace, in a way that is very difficult to express through simple speeches. There is an incredible radical film movement in Argentina, and almost constant militant film festivals happening in some part of the city. (An excellent book on the Argentine film movement has recently been released called “El Companero que Lleva La Camara: cine militante argentine” by Maximiliano de la Puente and Pablo Russo).

Each of these movie screenings, plays, literary presentations, or art showings helped to bring a revolutionary voice to communities that may not have otherwise heard such a message. A play would be performed in a community hall or a musician’s new song would be released talking about the unemployed movements and entirely new communities would suddenly be interested in revolutionary politics.

The relationship between artists and movements isn’t a one-way street. There are plenty of ways that artists benefit from such a relationship as well. Having revolutionary movements participate in the arts can free artists in the same way that revolutionaries hope to free other people. With the creation of spaces where artists can freely come out against the power structure, organizations ensure that artists are capable of surviving without needing to pander to the political and profit motives of the business elite. A culture of resistance will have new audiences ready to help popularize the art of revolutionaries. Those artists that don’t follow the corporate line will not be left to obscurity, but can become popular in entirely new contexts and communities.

More than just helping to expose an artist’s work, movements can help to inform and inspire artists in an intellectual and participatory way. Through direct participation, artists will become exposed to new ideas and realities, informing their art and activism. With the development of clearly revolutionary cultural outlets we could begin to create a counterbalance to the naïve, liberal, and patronizing politics of celebrity artists.

Building this new culture of resistance within our organizations, movements, and artistic communities means more than having a few “progressive” or political artists. It means having an explicit connection between the arts and organization. Rather than artists attacking Bush at a concert, we need artists promoting particular organizations and paths to victory. We need artists that are members of these organizations and aside from their art work also do some of the day to day organizing. It also means that organizations create clear spaces for artistic endeavors whether through media and culture committees, publicity in their literature and website, or in organizing actions.

Without building this connection we condemn our movements to remain boring and our artists to remain ineffectual. If we ever intend to have movements that go beyond a handful of area radicals, we need to begin participating in building a new, revolutionary artistic culture.

Lessons from Argentina: Resources and Production

2008-01-28T20:00:00.000-08:00

Upon arriving in Buenos Aires, I was immediately struck by the strength of their movements. That strength was marked primarily through the constant presence of social movements felt in the city. In part that presence came from the large and nearly constant demonstrations in the streets. But more than that, it was seeing the cultural centers, radical libraries, widely distributed revolutionary and rank and file newspapers, musicians singing about current causes, and of course, the presence of the worker expropriated businesses.

Originally I assumed that the presence of these available resources were the natural result of having broad support for the various movements. I’ve since come to understand that these movements don’t simply have these resources because they are larger, but that the resources are why they are larger. By giving people things to do other than simply show up to demonstrations, movements begin to build strong activists, volunteer bases, their own power, and a real reason to need more people actively involved in our movements. As we begin to build our capacity for growth, as well as our need for it, these resources can strengthen our ability to recruit new members. Those new members build our capacity to develop new projects and power within our movements. This seems like a cycle that movements in the US could use.

What kinds of resources?

Some of the different resources that I’ve seen used effectively in Buenos Aires are very basic things that movements of any size should be able to produce and use. Others are hopes that would require considerable investments of time, volunteers, and money. But, they aren’t impossible and should be goals to grow towards.

• Diffusion Tables: It‘s incredibly common to see tables of various organizations set up in public spaces around the city. Using a basic banner and a couple of flags they are able to look like serious organizations and attract more people. To set up they only require a couple of volunteers and the development of some basic materials that any group should have – a description of who the group is and what they do and some flyers for upcoming events. Good books or documentaries about the organization’s issues are great to put out as well.

• Physical and Public Space: Historically in Argentina, the beginnings of movements are recognized with the opening of ‘cultural centers’. A location that belongs to the movement is important in demonstrating the organization’s capacity to have an impact, even if that impact starts at one store-front. There are a number of spaces like this throughout Buenos Aires – the café and revolutionary university of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, various anarchist, socialist or communist libraries, theatres, and spaces within recuperated businesses. These spaces create genuine ties to the neighborhoods in which they reside while allowing a space to hold teach-ins, discussions, movie screenings, concerts, parties, and any other event an organization may want to hold.

• Political Artists: Plenty of artists exist that claim some sort of radical politics, but how many have any real connection with particular movements? This connection is vital for both – as artists can express the passion and inspiration that movements need and organizations can provide the exposure that artists may want. When this connection isn’t built we only invite the growth of an apathetic public.

• Media: I have been absolutely amazed by the production of media by organizers and activists in Buenos Aires. There are dozens of radical newspapers and magazines, groups producing documentaries, left wing radio programs, websites, and so much more. How can anyone be surprised by the strength of their movements when they have such constant media production and distribution? These sorts of means of production should be one of the goals of any serious movement. Shouldn’t we consistently ask ourselves how we are communicating our message with the public at large?

• Technology: Nearly all of the above resources will require access to and skill with some amount of tech. Computers, cameras, printing press, sound equipment, etc. will often be necessary tools in the building of truly popular movements. Developing these skills within ourselves and our communities is a valuable resource.

• Funding: Whether gained by membership dues, grants, fundraising events, or some other more creative ideas money is going to needed at some point. Good luck on this front!

A focus on developing these resources while building campaigns to win specific demands can help to build our groups from flashes in the pan that create some marginal change into sustainable and productive organizations. It’s precisely this sort of production in our work that can begin to present our ability to organize a more just and free world.

Visiting a Factory without Bosses -- FaSinPat.

2008-01-24T14:51:00.001-08:00

Anyone arriving in Argentina with an interest in the workers movements here will be pointed in the direction of Zanon, if the story about Zanon wasn't already the reason they came to Argentina. The ceramics factory of nearly 500 workers in the western province of Neuquen is one of the shining stars of the factory expropriation movement that swept Argentina in recent years.

A couple friends and I arrived at the factory with barely any advance warning. But, the workers were incredibly open and eager for visitors. We were sent to the press office where we met some of the administrative people. They brought us to a room within the factory that had 4 beds and tile walls covered in posters of their rallies and events. The room was set aside for visitors, and rarely empty. We then spent the next three days at the factory talking to, and eating with, the workers there.

Being from Buffalo, NY I'm not unaccustomed to being around factories. It took me some time to think of what was so different about this factory than those I had wandered in Buffalo. Wait. This factory is moving! As the workers took us through the factory they explained the production process of the tiles. While we walked, I couldn't help but compare to the empty factories of Buffalo -- symbols of decline, joblessness, poverty, and defeat. This factory was moving. This factory was producing.

We were told though that tiles aren't the only think being produced in this factory. They are also maintaining the image and possibility of worker self-management. This is why they produce under the new name FaSinPat (Fabrica Sin Patron or Factory without a Boss). As we went, I became generally interested in the process of tile production and I felt proud to see the cases of tile stacked outside. For even an outsider, the work began to have that sense of pride that capitalist bosses so often demand. But this wasn't pride for making a profit for someone we didn't know. This was a pride of seeing obvious proof that the working class is perfectly capable of running it all ourselves. A pride of knowing that our freedom was possible and that our chains were unnecessary.

How Did They Get Here?

Less than 10 years ago, Zanon was like any other exploitative business. Wages were low, workers had no say in their work lives, production was pushed beyond its maximum -- causing frequent injuries. There was a business friendly union that would inform the company of worker complaints so that those workers could be fired.

There was also the beginning of a radical presence. Social insertion, primarily through the Socialist Workers Party (PTS) had brought socialist ideas to the factory. This early process of radicalizing a small pocket within the factory was essential, but took a long time. However, once there was a militant and class-conscious core, they immediately set to taking back the union from the bureaucrats.

With delegates from Zanon and 3 other ceramics factories in the same area, they voted in a new, combative union leadership. Everyone regarded this as an important first step in their self-organizing. The taking of the union saw a rapid growth in class-consciousness among the workers. They began inddependently organizing a number of internal commissions (solidarity, women's, press, etc.) and having worker assemblies. This experience of self-organization would be incredibly useful in their expropriating of the factory.

In the months before the Argentine economic crisis, a union conflict was intensifying and calling for renewed investment in the factory -- as the management hadn't fixed broken equipment in years, despite consistent state subsidies. They also demanded back wages (some had gone months without pay) and increased safety measures after the death of one worker.

La Toma

This labor conflict quickly turned into a lockout as the boss fought back against the union, hoping to hire a more complacent work force. With the economic collapse in December 2001, management saw their opportunity to announce the temporary closure of the factory. Unfortunately for them the workers also saw this as their opportunity to take the factory. An assembly was called and workers decided to sell the inventory. They then used half of the profits to pay themselves a portion of back wages owed and used the other half to buy raw materials. With the deceivingly simple decision worker self-management began.

Self-Management

Today the factory runs democratically. Once a month one shift is dedicated to an all-factory assembly where important decisions are made by a vote of all members. The factory is divided into 12 sections (production, planning, sales, press, etc.). that each elect a delegate. Each day these 12 delegates meet to decide how to proceed with the necessary tasks of the day. Delegates rotate frequently and every few years administrators are chosen again, with the old administrators returning to the production line.

Has this model of self-management been successful for them? When they took the factory, there were 266 workers involved. Today despite the fact that the government has given them zero subsidies, there are around 470 workers -- many hired from the area unemployed workers movement.

Not only has FaSinPat become a stable source of work during a chaotic economic period, they have used their position to organize in defense of worker self-management throughout the country and in solidarity with a number of other movements. They buy their raw materials from the indigenous Mapuche whose land the previous owners were trying to steal. When the provincial government ignored years of community demands for a hospital, FaSinPat helped to build it in three months. Their workers can be speaking at conferences, at rallies in support of other struggles, or at meetings helping organize further actions. With any luck, we will begin to see more successes in this style of workplace struggle and organization.

Reflection of the Anti-Electoral Campaign

2007-11-06T11:55:00.000-08:00

When I originally heard of the Red Libertaria of Argentina's plans to run an Anti-Electoral Campaign, I simultaneously agreed with the idea and thought it useless. I generally agreed with the premise that electoral politics are so fully corrupt and so lacking authentic representation that they have become useless in the struggle for a just world. Direct organization of the rank and file of society into resistance movements seems the route to achieving any sustainable justice.

It was precisely this belief in organized resistance that made any focus on the elections seem reactionary. If elections are only the illusion of choice and power than why react to them at all? Instead why don't we propose and organize our alternatives while ignoring the charade?

I was also concerned with some strategic logistics of the campaign. What exactly defined victory? From experience in the US it's clear that low voter turn out doesn't dissuade politicians from acting as if they have some grand mandate.

After around 2 months of discussions, parties, postering, and literature distribution I came to realize that the campaign had more value than I had previously thought. A valuable critique was added to this electoral discourse that is so often missing in the US -- a systemic critique. The discussion made the left clearly distinct from liberals. It called into question all of those things that elections don't even claim to change. It provided arguments for why unions and community organizations shouldn't allow themselves to be swept into the electoral arena. More than anything it fought to dispel the illusion that elections can offer a road to serious change.

However, what truly helped me to see the value of the campaign was that it was consistently used as a call to action. In only dispelling the illusion of elections it would seem a campaign to remove what little sense of their own power the people currently have. But instead the campaign offered an alternative that social organizing will bring change. It provided an opportunity to call into question the system before us while offering a vision of direct democratic possibilities and of a society of greater equality. As elections approach in the US a dialogue of this nature should help to remind our movements of how to truly build power.

Educate, Agitate, Vote?

2007-10-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

This Sunday, Oct. 28th, the Argentine General Elections will be held, electing a new president for the nation. With the number of social organizations participating in the electoral arena, it's hard to see that this is the same country that only six years ago saw a total collapse of confidence in the political and economic system.

"Que se vayan todos" -- They all must go. That was the chant heard in Buenos Aires during the December uprisings of 2001. Referring to the entire governing class and their ideologies, huge numbers chanted and sang outside of the Argentine Congress and the Casa Rosada. The political and economic crisis caused the country to go through 5 presidents in under one month as the people lost all faith in the institutions that governed their lives.

But today, after 4 years of the center-left Kirchner government, it seems that much of that lost faith has been restored. While the government has demonstrated some progressive attitudes, it has also shown itself to be just as willing to repress the people's will as past governments. Many today see through the "progressive" Kirchner image. They recognize it through the lens of Argentina history as a tool to divide and weaken social movements in an effort to save the same institutions and social structure that was so recently exposed for what it truly is. As the government appears to be friendly, many no longer see the need for an organized and militant people.

In recent months there has been an ongoing campaign by the Red Libertaria of Argentina (http://www.inventati.org/rlba/) to remind the people of Argentina that true change comes from below through organized people and communities not from the electoral battles of politicians. In fact, the current progressive attitude of some parts of government is a response to the level of social organization and mobilization in past years.

Through community discussions and forums, concerts, rallies, postering and literature distrubution the Anti-Electoral Campaign of the Red Libertaria has reminded sections of Buenos Aires that it is their organization in workplaces, communities, and schools that truly forces social change. The hope of these discussions was to dispel the myth that basic participation in elections gives the people any real and lasting power. If the elections aren't capable of changing any of the basic institutions that run our society, then they are only the illusion of power.

I can't help but put this in the context of the movements back in the United States. As the US prepares to enter an electoral year, I can only hope that movements there can learn the same lessons being taught by the Red Libertaria. After the 2006 elections and the supposed anti-war mandate sending the Democratic Parties victory, we have seen very little substantive change concerning the war in Iraq. I desperately hope that the memory of our movements in the United States is longer than 2 years and that they don't fall for the same traps again.

Repression Continues in Argentina

2007-09-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

On the night of September 17, 1976 ten students were “disappeared” by the military dictatorship of Argentina in what became known as La Noche de los Lápices (The Night of the Pencils). The same day twenty years later, under the supposedly progressive Kirchner government, Jorge Julio López disappeared just before his final testimony against the senior police officer, Miguel Etchecolatz.

A Heroic Witness

Miguel Etchecolatz was the Director of Investigations for the Buenos Aires Provincial Police from early 1976 until late 1977. His tenure saw the greatest number of disappearances, as students, workers, and activists were kidnapped by the military government. Many of those disappeared were taken for incredibly minor displays of dissent. This was the case during The Night of the Pencils, when 10 high school students were kidnapped in the night for their activism in a campaign asking for free bus passes to school. Of the ten students, six were never seen again and the other 4 were held in illegal detention centers and tortured. These four were released between 1978 and 1980.

In the same city of La Plata, a brick layer, Jorge Julio López was disappeared on October 21, 1976. He was then held without charges until June 25, 1979. Both of these series of kidnappings were under the jurisdiction of Etchecolatz. When the military government was changed in 1983, there were promises that those responsible for the Dirty Wars would be punished. In 1986, Etchecolatz was sentenced to 23 years in prison, but didn’t serve any time due to laws enacted to protect former military and police – the Full Stop Law and the Law of Due Obedience.

In June of 2005, these two laws were voided by the Argentine Supreme Court, allowing for charges to be filed again. In the trial against Etchecolatz, Julio López was one of the key witnesses. Knowing the potential danger of being a witness at this trial he went on to name 62 police and military officers. The day before his final testimony, and the 20^th anniversary of the Night of the Pencils, was the last time Julio López was seen. Despite his disappearance, Etchecolatz was sentenced to life imprisonment, largely based on the testimony of López.

Since the disappearance of López, government officials have been quick to announce their optimism in the search and repeatedly mention their “successes”. But none of this progress has been demonstrated publicly. Kirchner’s faction within the legislature has even gone so far as to block projects aimed at finding López.

A Vigilant People

On another cheerless anniversary, 1 year since the disappearance of López, an estimated twenty thousand marched through Buenos Aires, with thousands more marching in La Plata, the hometown of López. We marched from the Congress building to the Plaza de Mayo with unionists, political parties, human rights organizations, and even three current presidential candidates.

We marched calling for the reappearance of López and the punishment of those involved with his disappearance. But the rally wasn’t only in remembrance of López, it was calling for an end to the state repression that has been common under the Kirchner government. There were a series of demands connecting the disappearance to other tactics currently used by the government reminiscent of the days of the dictatorship. Workers from the Hospital Frances demanded that the military and police occupation of their hospital end, we called for an end to the Anti-Terrorist law (similar to the PATRIOT Act in the US and pushed by the Bush Administration), and punishment to those involved – politically and materially – in the death of Carlos Fuenteabla.

It’s unclear the direction Argentina will take, both in the upcoming presidential elections and in the realm of actual democracy. Will the state continue to exercise power to repress the social movements of the nation or will Argentina begin to practice true democracy?

Defense of the Hotel BAUEN, Pt. 3

2007-08-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

In the past week there have been two events to advance the campaign against the eviction of the Hotel BAUEN. Neither were marches. There was no long list of speakers or any political target. They were concerts and block parties – festivals. They could also have been called rallies, except that they were more fun. Organizations brought out their banners and signs, there were chants, and there was media coverage. But each also included live musical performances and barbeque.

On Sunday, we gathered outside of the expropriated factory Gráfrica Patricios, a printing factory in the neighborhood called Barracas. With no permission or permit, the workers and activists taped off a block, built a stage, and began cooking. A few hundred people would arrive to this first concert billed as a “festival in defense of the recuperated factories”. Mostly Argentine folk music was played, people danced, radical documentaries were distributed, photographers displayed their work, and flyers were handed out for the next festival two days later outside of the Hotel BAUEN.

That Tuesday we gathered on Avenida Callao, one of the busiest streets in Buenos Aires, at the doors to the Hotel. As the stage was built, street theatre performances were held and food was sold, with all funds going to the defense campaign. Thousands were in attendance with delegations from dozens of groups – workers from the Hospital Francés and the Subte, socialist and communist parties, anarchists, organizations of the unemployed, the University at Buenos Aires student government and many others.

The diversity of the performances was an incredible achievement to me. There were typical Argentina rock bands, a metal band, a hip hop act, and the closer was an inspirational folk singer. León Gieco has been a politically charged musician in Argentina since the early 70´s. He spent part of the dictatorship living in Los Angeles to escape the censorship of his music.

This blend of culture, music, and political action seems to me something incredibly important for the movements of the United States. We seem to have a simple and formulaic response to the problems within our country. While the importance of rallies and serious, direct discussions is obvious; these are only some of the tools available to our movements. I wish I could point to the place that this separation began in US organizing. Are political organizers not doing what they should to incorporate the activities of artists and musicians? Or, are politically oriented artists and musicians content to say what they feel through their art while not directly supporting specific fights? Whatever the answer, I hope that we can begin to over come this separation and build a closer relationship between organizers and artists. We need to build a culture of revolutionary organizing and activities like this can help to broaden our audiences, provide excellent fundraisers, build people’s inspiration, and are just plain fun.

The block party atmosphere of these events was so important, as they were clearly events for anyone to attend. But this doesn’t mean there was nothing militant about them. While there was no worry about police attacks, as their likely would be in the states, this seemed to come from a true sense of power that the people had. Rather than chanting it, these really were their streets. There was never a need to question it, they controlled their community and they would do with it what they liked. That true sense of autonomy and culture struck me as something more radical and powerful than most of the protests in which I’ve participated. When I asked someone at the first festival if they had obtained a permit for the event, I was laughed at. It did seem more likely however, that the BAUEN event had asked for a permit as they closed down one of the major city streets at rushhour. But it was this willingness and ability to assert control of the city that was so empowering to me.

In the end, these fun and popular events aren’t the end of the fight by any means. Throughout the concert two rallies were announced repeatedly. One rally and march next week in support of the Hotel BAUEN cooperative, and another calling for an end to the occupation of the Hospital Francés. The concert helped to expand the audience that was there to hear those announcements. Not only those in the crowd, but those on TV watching the León Gieco.

For more pictures of the events:

Festival at Gráfica Patricios: http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2007/08/541155.php

Festival at the BAUEN: http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2007/08/541688.php

Military and Police Occupy Hospital in Struggle

2007-08-14T11:44:00.001-07:00

The Hospital Francés has been struggling for months with political attacks on the public health system of Argentina. Continual efforts have been made to weaken this system, beginning with a number of attacks on the workers of the hospital. In the hospital of 1,200 workers, most are owed some amount of back wages that have not been paid. While officials still receive the same inflated pay. Retirement packages are under attack and recently 8 workers were fired, including an assembly delegate. Workers have recently initiated a struggle demanding pay of their back wages, stabilization of work, greater job security, and the rehiring of past workers.

On Wednesday August 8th the management made a claim that workers had used property destruction as a tactic in their fight. With absolutely no proof of such a claim, the government occupied the hospital with over 100 military and police officers. It’s now almost a week later, and those forces remain.

Immediately after the invasion the workers called a general assembly in which they decided on an indefinite strike until the occupation was ended. At a later assembly and press conference, the workers that this was “a clear misuse of national security forces” and that the Kirchner government was trying to turn labor demands into a national security issue. The same was recently done in the occupation of schools in the province of Santa Cruz. This escalating move on the part of the government has forced the strike that they are now faced with. Workers are now holding regular assemblies to decide on the course of their struggle. The first step is a rally announced for tomorrow (Wednesday August 15th) demanding an immediate end to the occupation in addition to the past demands.

Defense of the Hotel BAUEN, Pt. 2

2007-08-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

Today at 11am hundreds of people were gathered outside of the Hotel BAUEN at the first protest in response to the recently received eviction order. While the cooperative workers began the demonstration, delegations began to arrive from other groups throughout the city that have pledged some amount of solidarity with the threatened worker cooperative.

By noon a crowd had gathered and taken over Avenida Callao in front of the hotel. They were playing drums, had a marching band, and were chanting. "Bauen es de los trabajadores, y los que no le gusta, se jode, jode." Or, "Bauen belongs to the workers and those that don't like it can screw themselves."

There were support delegations from a number of political parties, social organizations, and unions. A federation of neighborhood assemblies was well represented along with a number of unemployed and piquetero organizations. There was even a small contingent of members of the Industrial Workers of the World from the US and Canada.

After the delegations had gathered, we marched up Avenida Callao to the judicial offices that had ordered the eviction. With a line of riot police blocking the entrance and wathcing the crowd we sang and danced, demonstrating that we weren't afraid of the police or the judges they protected.

During the march, I had the empowering realization that this great rally was only a building block to further resistance in the coming month.

Defense of the Hotel BAUEN Pt. 1

2007-07-31T12:52:00.000-07:00

The workers at the Hotel BAUEN Cooperative recently held a gathering of solidarity activists to announce their plan of struggle against the eviction order and for their full expropriation of the building. For now, I will just post the list of upcoming activities. Later, I will post my thoughts and experiences of the events and the month of struggle as a whole. I will also later be posting an email get-active that people can send to the judges and politicians involved as a statement of solidarity with the cooperative workers. However, before posting the calendar of events there are a few things that immediately struck me that I want to mention.

On the day of this gathering, the workers of the Hotel BAUEN came with announcements and tasks. They had stacks of thousands of leaflets explaining their situation along with a list of important locations in the city to distribute such information. It was the sort of seriousness in organizing that I rarely see in the United States and shows the absolute importance of community support for their struggle. The locations they chose reflected a real diversity in their outreach efforts as well as a general attempt at communication with the public.

Included in the list of events are a number of cultural events as well as typical protest organizing. This is an important element so often left out in organizing in the United States, and it tends to make our organizing dry, boring, and exclusive. Artistic groups are actively doing this sort of solidarity as a means to defend BAUEN and the rest of the cooperative movement.

Lastly, I’m impressed by the strategic organizing being done. The demands are not purely defensive, as they easily could be. Rather than simply calling for the eviction order to be reversed, they are using this mobilizing opportunity to take an offensive stance. They are using this moment to simultaneously call for full expropriation of the building for the cooperative. In the face of state repression they are maintaining an astounding strength and clarity.

Month of activities in defense of the Hotel BAUEN Worker Cooperative:

July 27^th and 28^th – The band Ataque 77 will play a concert in support of the cooperative.
August 3^rd – The San Telmo neighborhood assembly is organizing a show with La Covacha and Poder Sikuri as a fundraiser to defend the attack.
August 6^th – We will meet at the doors of the BAUEN hotel with a murga and theatre group to lead a funeral procession to the office of the judge involved in the eviction order. We will be mourning the loss of the right to work while the cooperative workers present a letter of demands.
August 9^th – Press conference at the Hotel with the culture committee of the worker cooperative. A social and political atmosphere with artists and musicians.
August 16^th – The play “Maquinando” will be shown in solidarity with the struggle. The play is the story of the expropriation of printing factory in Buenos Aires.
August 24^th – In the final day of the eviction notice there will be a large rally outside of the BAUEN Hotel.

I will post more of these events as they come.

Hotel BAUEN: Threatened With Eviction

2007-07-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

Once again for solidarity! Time to defend our victories!

The Hotel BAUEN has become one of the most significant symbols of the worker recuperated businesses here in Argentina. It’s exactly this symbol of a worker power and progress that the state is hoping to repress now. This Saturday, July 21^st, the worker cooperative at the Hotel BAUEN was served with an eviction order, giving them one week to leave the building. We cannot allow such an important movement advance to be pushed back.

History

The hotel hasn’t always been a symbol of progress and promise. The 20-story building was built in 1978 with massive state subsidies from the military dictatorship then in power. It quickly became a symbol of upper class luxury in Argentina. During the 1990’s and the failures of the neoliberal model pushed by the International Monetary Fund and President Carlos Menem the business began to fail. With the total lack of imagination consistent of capitalist management, the owners saw no option but to close the hotel. On December 28^th, 2001 – shortly after the neoliberal economic model in Argentina collapsed, and the people revolted – the Hotel BAUEN was closed leaving all of its workers unemployed.

On March 23^rd, 2003 a group of around 30 former hotel workers met with delegates from other recuperated businesses around the country. They headed to the hotel, broke the lock to the entrance, and while occupying the building, began the legal process of applying for cooperative status. Upon arriving they found a nearly destroyed building, no inhabitable rooms, and no electricity. In the following months, the workers began fixing the hotel. They rented out rooms as they became available, and in December 2004 opened up the front café. Today the entire 200 rooms are open for business; there is a convention hall, concert space in the basement, and bookstore in the lobby. The workers have even managed to do what is so rare in Argentina today: create jobs. From the initial 30 cooperative members that took the space, there are now over 160 cooperative members.

Inspiration

All of the accomplishments of reopening the hotel have been done through democratic worker self-management. Decisions are made through assemblies and the workers themselves control all profits of the hotel. This success has been an inspiration to movements throughout the country. The story of their success has been spread in part through the cooperatives consistent solidarity with other movements. Once a week you can find the subway worker assembly delegates organizing their union’s struggle. Activist groups use the space for gatherings and conferences. There are frequent concerts put on by social groups. In the basement the activist media group Alavio has editing space, and there are constant movement discussions happening in the lobby restaurant and bookstore.

The Hotel BAUEN worker cooperative has not only inspired activists in Argentina, but throughout the world. Lessons have been taken from the Hotel BAUEN by worker cooperatives, union movements, and cultural centers throughout the world. They have demonstrated the possibilities of solidarity economics in the face of tremendous pressure, and managed to run a socially conscious business better than many of the exploitative businesses in the city of Buenos Aires.

Threats and Repression

Of course the state of affairs based on exploitative economics can’t allow this model to gain a successful stronghold and continually transmit inspiration throughout the world. During their process of opening the hotel they have been faced with numerous legal challenges and eviction orders. Despite all of their tremendous work the BAUEN cooperative still has not obtained a full legal expropriation. However, the current eviction order represents a considerable escalation against the cooperative on the part of the state. Past evictions have come from relatively minor problems, like possible fire hazards that needed to be fixed. The eviction order received this past Saturday is considerably stronger, saying that the cooperative must leave because they have stolen the building. The local government is showing their true political colors by asserting the property rights of those that gained the building from the military dictatorship and destroyed it over those that have revitalized it.

In the past eviction orders have been fought off in part through massive solidarity efforts. The example of the Hotel BAUEN worker cooperative has provided insight and motivation to many of our movements throughout the world in recent years. It’s our obligation to stand with them now and repay all that they have already given each of us. No, it’s not an obligation; it’s an honor to stand with these courageous people.

Subway Workers Rising!

2007-07-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

In relatively short time here in Argentina I have come to find a huge variety of labor struggles. In the past few months there have been actions taken by tire factory workers, casino workers, hospital workers, agricultural workers, subway workers, and more in Buenos Aires. To find a particular place of business on strike at any given moment is a common site. While talking to people about these struggles, what I’ve found hasn’t been very surprising. Those unions that fight are more likely to win. But what is definitely different from so many actions I have seen in the US is that those fights are so often led by worker assemblies. The power of a particular union can be measured by the activity, support, and sustainability of the rank and file assemblies within that union.

Privatization

The best example of an assembly that has sustained constant activity in Buenos Aires is clearly the subte workers. The subte (Buenos Aires’ subway system) was privatized in 1994 and sold to the company Metrovias. This privatization brought about some massive immediate changes. The system went from 4,600 employees to 1,500 – 800 of which were new hires with no previous experience. Wages were lowered and arbitrary firings became common place. At the same time, during the presidency of Carlos Menem, unemployment was growing. After the economic crisis of 2001, unemployment would rise to over 20%, as the policy of privatization of all services grew.

Worker Democracy in Action

With daily exploitation of workers growing and constant arbitrary firings, workers began to organize. Their early demands included recognition of their assembly delegates and an end to all firings. In these early fights, they built the worker assembly, and began to develop a sense of unity between workers. The subte system has a number of different types of workers on 5 different lines. Different sections of workers would often have no contact at all with one another. But today there is constant mobilization by workers. Each line has its own assembly, electing delegates to represent them. Those delegates have weekly coordinating meetings, in the Hotel Bauen (an expropriated hotel in central Buenos Aires). These assemblies and delegates organize negotiations, media, cultural events, strikes, and other worker actions.

Through these mechanisms of self organization, the Subte workers union has consistently been one of the most active and militant of unions in the nation. They have held numerous work stoppages from 1 hour to 2 days long in what they see as an ongoing labor struggle for all workers. In the January of 2005 these methods of organizing saw their true test. After police attacked a rally of workers, an indefinite strike was called by the assembly. In what many here consider to be a prime example of worker organizing, the strike maintained consistent actions. They held numerous marches, built community support, and kept control in the hands of the rank and file. In the end they won a 44% increase in wages and benefits and the 6-hour work day.

Solidarity Struggles

With power in such a clearly strategic industry – transportation, the Subte workers have since organized in solidarity with a number of movements. They are often one of the first unions to take action in regional struggles. Along with the recuperated factory and unemployed worker movements, the Subte workers have called for a national 6-hour work day. The 6-hour day will help to end the crippling unemployment faced by Argentine workers. It will also help to end the exploitative and precarious working conditions of those working; conditions that so often destroy the capacity of labor movements to fight.

They are also working with a number of organizations in Buenos Aires to call for public control of Line H, the subway line currently under construction. These actions are demonstrating the common ground between workers, demanding better employment conditions, and riders, calling for lower fares and community regulatory powers.

As a part of these struggles, or in relation to their own demands, the Subte workers have taken on a number of workplace direct actions. They organize everything from press events and rallies, to short term strikes, and free fare days as methods of their ongoing struggle with the company Metrovías.

The Subte workers have come to represent the real potential of a rank and file led worker movement to many in Argentina. On any given day, delegates from the assembly are on the news talking about a current action or campaign. Their actions have taken a meaning much greater than simply their on the job complaints, they are a beacon of the power that the worker movement can demonstrate in building a different world.

Human rights in Argentina: Where is Julio Lopez? (Reposted)

2007-07-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

Written by Marie Trigona

Tuesday, 03 July 2007

Argentina is preparing for a new human rights trial for crimes committed during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Just days before the start of the latest trial, Argentine police discovered a body thought to be that of a missing witness.

Police early this morning found a body of a man, who they believed to be Julio Lopez the key witness who went missing last year following the land mark conviction of a police official who ran clandestine torture centers. Forensic officials confirmed today that the body, found without its hands or feet, was not that of 78-year-old Julio Lopez. Police followed a tip off that a dismembered body had been found in an unmarked grave about 6 miles from the city of La Plata, where Lopez was last seen on September 18, 2006.

The gruesome discovery could have a chilling effect on witnesses planning to testify in a new trial of an accused torturer. On Thursday, a federal court will open the trial of Catholic priest, Christian Von Wernich, charged with carry out human rights abuses while orking in several of the clandestine detention centers used to disappear 30,000 dissidents during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

The next individual slated for trial, Catholic Priest Christian Von Wernich, facing charges for kidnapping 45 people, torture, three murders, and the illegal appropriation of a baby born in captivity. Witnesses scheduled to testify in the trial say they won't be scared off. There are currently 200 former military officers lined up for human rights trials—not even one officer for each of the 375 clandestine detention centers that operated during the dictatorship.

Juan Ramon Nazar was kidnapped in 1977 and held in a clandestine detention center for 14 months. While in a two-by-two cell in the detention center's basement, Father Von Wernich visited Nazar to give him "spiritual aid" Nazar, now 75, has agreed to testify to the torture he received at the hands of Von Wernich. He recently stated, "I'm willing to testify before the courts as many times as necessary. I'm not afraid and I'm not going to ask for police protection."

Lopez, a retired construction worker and former political prisoner disappeared just hours before he was slated to give his final testimony on the eve of the conviction of the former police investigator, Miguel Etchecolatz. Human rights groups are pointing to provincial police with ties to the 1976-1983 military dictatorship for kidnapping the witness.

Etchecolatz's sentence for crimes against humanity, genocide, and the murder and torture of political dissidents during the dictatorship represents the first time in the nation's history that the courts have sentenced a military officer to life for crimes against humanity.

This is only the second conviction of a former military officer charged with human rights abuses since 2005 when Argentina's Supreme Court struck down immunity laws for former officers of the military dictatorship as unconstitutional. Etchecolatz was arrested and sentenced to 23 years in 1986, but was later freed when the "full stop" and "due obedience" laws implemented in the early '90s made successful prosecution of ex-military leaders for human rights abuses virtually impossible.

Marie Trigona is a writer, filmmaker and radio reporter for Free Speech Radio News based in Buenos Aires. She can be reached at mtrigona@msn.com. For more information on Argentina's human rights trials visit http://mujereslibres.blogspot.com/

Marie Trigona

Update: Two Recent Victories

2007-06-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

In the past two weeks there have been two inspiring victories here in Buenos Aires. Students at Carlos Pellegrini have ended their occupation and the tire workers strike at Fate has also ended. While both struggles made compromises in their current agreements, they also won amazing concessions from those in power and continued to build the strength of their movements.

Student Democracy at Carlos Pellegrini (original report here)

Students at the Carlos Pellegrini university prep school demanded that the recently appointed principal Juan Carlos Viegas be fired with a new principal being chosen through election. On May 25th, after a refusal by the school to hear their demands, students occupied the building. Classes would continue, the occupation quickly gained the support of parents, teachers, and other building employees, but Viegas was refused entry to the school.

After nearly one month of continual occupation and countless assemblies held by students, teachers, and faculty, the occupation has ended and an agreement has been reached. Assemblies of each group spent all of Tuesday June 19th in debate over the proposed deal, eventually agreeing to it. The agreement has 3 major stipulations. 1) A committee of students, teachers, and faculty will be made that will have binding authority over academic, extracurricular, and extension programs at the school. 2) A complete overhaul of Viegas’ intended course for the school, stressing the “universal, humanist, and autonomous” aspects of the schools. 3) Students will gain full control over the school café and copy machine services (so that they can make copied packets of required text, rather than buying text books).

While this agreement does accept that Viegas will still be the principal of the school, it goes beyond simple reaction to his role. The deal pushes the boundaries of student control, while leaving Viegas nearly powerless. Instead of simply reacting to a poor leader, they have changed the institution as a whole.

A Partial Victory at Fate (original report here)

After nearly two weeks of a full and indefinite strike, the workers at Fate decided to partially return to work. They returned to the idea of a 3 hour per shift strike. This would allow workers to continue receiving wages while maintaining their struggle. However, when they tried to return to work the bosses cut the factories power, turning the strike into a lockout. Another deal was then offered to the workers, a 22% raise spread out for months and a one time $1400 peso payment at the signing of the contract. This deal was rejected.

In late May another nearby factory joined the Fate workers in strike. The Fate workers held a number of marches and another picket of the Pan American Highway with these workers. Shortly after their joint action on the highway, Fate workers called for a concert and party at the gates of the factory for all those in solidarity with their struggle. Hundreds gathered for the event and dozens of organizations pledged their support to the new fight. These events gave improved the morale of the Fate workers and gave them the energy to push on in their fight.

In the next 2 weeks the fight at Fate would intensify quickly. After an incredibly complex series of events, debates, and assemblies a deal was finally negotiated and agreed to by the union. However, they then only allowed a yes or no vote on the new deal (rather than the usual assembly discussion) which included a 25% raise, $18,000 peso bonus given at two times, and a renegotiation of the entry level wage. This agreement was passed by the majority of members. While it’s considered a partial victory, a fight continues to ensure the power of the assembly and to elect assembly delegates for each shift. In a fight that began with the miserable offer of an 8% wage increase and no one respecting the power of the assembly, this is an excellent first step.

Argentine Students Demanding Democracy in Education

2007-06-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, May 24th, I attended the weekly movie screening series at La Casa de Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. The movie of the week was about the “Penguin Revolution” – a massive rebellion of high school students that occurred in April and May of 2006 – throughout Chile. As it happened, the movie screening turned out to be prophetic. The next week, there would be a high school student uprising in Buenos Aires.

The Penguin Revolution
On April 24th, 2006 it was announced that fees would be increased for the PSU (university admissions test) and that public transportation passes for high school students would be restricted. Students in Santiago, Chile (whose uniforms gave them the appearance of penguins) immediately took notice of these changes and began to mobilize students in their city. They organized marches, and on April 26th, one of the marches became violent and 47 students were arrested. On May Day, new rallies were held, and again violence broke out. This time 1,024 students were arrested in Santiago and in other cities around the nation. The unrest was spreading. But public opinion was also turning against the students.

Public opinion would begin to change after two prestigious schools took action, simultaneously calling for more long term demands which called for a complete overhaul of the laws around education with the goal of quality education for all Chileans. On May 19th these two schools were occupied by their students. They demanded that the Chilean President would concede to their demands during her traditional May 21st address to the nation. She instead condemned the student movement for provoking violence. By May 26th over 100,000 students and about 100 schools were either on strike or occupied. On May 30th the national student union called for a strike that was supported by the national teachers union and the University student union. The May 30th strike saw an estimated one million people take part. On June 1st, President Michelle Bachelete gave in to the majority of the students demands. On June 7th, she announced a national advisory committee on education that would contain 6 seats reserved for high school students. Shortly afterwards0 the students accepted and called off the occupations and strikes, having won a number of massive changes to national education policy.

In Buenos Aires Today
One year later, on May 25th, in Buenos Aires, students at the two high schools run by the University of Buenos Aires have occupied their schools. The recently chosen principal for the schools, Juan Carlos Viegas, is not someone that the students want as their principal. More important to the students, he is not someone that they have chosen. They are demanding that the principal be chosen by referendum.

After demonstrations of more than half of the student body were ignored repeatedly by the school administration, students held an assembly to consider their direction. They voted for the occupation that has now lasted nearly two weeks. However, classes have continued. The students aren’t refusing to allow the school to function; they are only refusing entrance to the newly chosen principal. Each day they keep watch at the door to stop the principal from entering. The students also have daily assemblies in which they decide the direction they will take with their movement. The students continue to offer dialogue, so long as the new principal doesn’t enter the building. For the most part that offer to dialogue has been refused by an administration that seems to be simultaneously refusing the idea of democratic educational institutions.

Democratizing Education
In the United States, the simple idea of democracy in education is a lesson that we need to learn. With students governments that either don’t exist, or simply exist to plan dances and concerts, we seem to have abandoned the idea of a legitimate student voice in the educational process. To begin organizing students (particularly high school students) to seriously challenge the overtly authoritarian ideals that our school systems uses could help to build a spirit of direct democracy. Students could simultaneously challenge both the school systems that have so miraculously failed them as well as their own lack of power in society at large. Each day I’m reminded of the students’ sense of their own power. I turn on the news and reporters are asking students what will happen at their school today. They respond: “We’ll see what the assembly decides.”

Fate Strike: Worker Assembly Takes Action, Builds Power.

2007-05-19T15:41:00.000-07:00

I recently attended my first worker assembly outside the gates of a tire factory called Fate. Fate is just outside of the city of Buenos Aires in the northern industrial zone. Workers there are now engaging in what is becoming an increasingly significant struggle. I had the privilege to attend one of their early and important assemblies. Here is the story so far:

Background:

The struggle at Fate has been going on for months. The factory’s 2,000 employees have been demanding a substantial increase in wages. I say substantial only because their current wages are hideously low. Their central demand is a raise in wages to $2400 pesos per month (about $US 800). The current entry wage is $1100 pesos (less than $US400). Many of them often work 7 days a week for this wage. To put that in perspective, I am currently renting a single room out of a person’s house for $1000 pesos per month. The company initially refused this request, pushing the union to consider further action.

When the union threatened to take action to win their demands, the Ministry of Labor called a 30 day obligatory conciliation period. During this period, neither the union nor the company can take any action against one another. This period is meant as a cool down period where both parties can negotiate. At this point, that negotiation was done between the company, representatives from the factory union SUTNA (Sindicato Unico de Trabajadores Nuematicos de Argentina), and a representative from the union federation CTA. Throughout this period there were a number of large marches on the labor ministry by the workers of Fate. At the end of this process the company had an offer. They were proposing a meager raise in wages that was spread over 6 months. At the same time, workers called a general assembly where they voted to begin a 5 day strike.

During this 5 day strike there were a number of rallies. These took place in the city of Buenos Aires and in the northern industrial zone. The strikes outside of the city are of particular importance, as they are in the heart of Argentina’s manufacturing industry. There are dozens of major factories in the area north of Buenos Aires, and worker actions in those areas are noticed by workers throughout this area of mass production. Many of the workers in the other factories face the same struggles as those at Fate. They also took over the highway in a massive act of disobedience, gaining a great deal of attention in the region. As the 5 day strike ended, the company offered a proposal. They offered the same proposal as before. The next day an assembly was called for at the shift change.

The Assembly:

I woke up early to take a train toward Tigre, a wealthy tourist area along the northern beaches of the Rio de la Plata. I left the train earlier than the packs of tourists that I saw to head away from the beaches, towards the factories and barrios that surround them. I met with a friend that was making short documentaries of the struggle that Fate workers were undertaking. He would later distribute those videos to Fate workers to help excite and unify them in their fight. As we drove into Barrio Fate, it became obvious that the northern industrial district didn’t receive any of the wealth of the neighboring tourist destinations. As we approached the factory, it was clear that workers had a great deal of power here. They had taken over an intersection right outside the factory gates as their meeting space. Burning tires blocked the roads leading to the intersection, and union banners tied between telephone poles created walls. A pack of workers in the center of the intersection were beating drums and singing songs of the struggle. There were maybe 200 hundred employees there; most wearing their blue Fate jackets. More were continually arriving, as they set up the mobile sound truck. Once the assembly started, there were nearly 1,000 workers present.

As the assembly began, there were a number of things to decide. The priority was obviously to decide whether the strike continued, or if they would accept the offer. There were two clear plans introduced. The first was to strike 3 hours of every shift. It would slow, but not stop production. It was also more likely to be accepted by those workers that had not been active in the struggle, and that were not currently attending the assembly. The other offer was to immediately begin a full and indefinite strike. While this tactic is definitely the stronger of the two, there were some questions about whether or not it was something being pushed by a radical minority that would marginalize the rest of the workforce. It quickly seemed as though this was not only the desire of a radical workforce, as the entire crowd seemed to support an immediate and indefinite strike.

It was then necessary to deal with the issue of negotiations. One of the CTA negotiators was known to the rank and file as someone who had recently negotiated the firing of more than 100 workers at another factory. While he is legally required to be there, they didn’t trust him as the sole negotiator. They decided to elect 2 delegates from every shift to take part in the negotiations process as well.

In terms of continuing the strike they needed to consider the actions they would take, and how they would organize. They quickly decided to create two committees to help coordinate their efforts. The first would be a general strike committee and the second a press committee. Spontaneously and very surprising to both me and the friend I was with, they decided to immediately march to the Pan-American Highway and cut it off again!

El Corte:
After doing a couple of quick interviews, we ran to catch up with the march. They marche past a number of other factories, gaining mountains of attention from other workers, then marched into a part of Barrio Fate I hadn’t seen – the bosses’ part. On the opposite side of the factory from the workers community lays the mansions of the bosses. They marched past rows of wildly expensive houses toward the highway. When they arrived at the highways, they began collecting materials to build a few fires. However, they didn’t cut off the entire highway. One lane on either side was left open, and banners were displayed at those positions. It was clear that this wasn’t a tactic meant to stop the highway from running or to simply pressure the bosses. They were cutting off the highway as the shifts were changing at other factories. Hundreds of workers from other factories saw their action, and many were likely inspired by their struggle. They remained there for some three hours before returning to the factory to continue their assembly, with no harassment from the police. When I questioned why the police were not responding with force, it was explained to me that the labor movement here has enough sense of solidarity that to try and force these workers to move would likely cause a national incident, and that the state plans carefully for such confrontations with the labor movement.

After a day spent with these Fate workers, I am amazed by the democratic way the fight is progressing. Decisions are made in assembly, but without pressure from union staff to choose a particular direction. The rank and file themselves decided on a course of action for the strike, and developed their own methods of organizing and leading the strike. They even extended the reach of the rank and file by demanding to be a central part of the negotiation process.

It’s not clear as of now, where this strike is going. Although it is very clear that there will be one serious fight in the heart of Argentine industry. I will continue updating on this struggle as it grows.

For video by Contra Imagen of the assembly and both actions on the highway go to: http://youtube.com/watch?v=d-OrWtGHZaE&mode=related&search=

Check out other documentaries about the social movements of Argentina here (mostly in Spanish):

http://contraimagen.org.ar/
http://agoratv.org/

The Death of Carlos Fuentealba: A Reflection on Solidarity Actions

2007-04-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

It has been more than 2 weeks since the death of Carlos Fuentealba. I'm interested in reflecting on the reactions to this event and what it can mean in a larger context for union movements. While this situation is far from resolved, I feel there are some lessons that can be learned from the immediate response.

Those reactions were criticized by many on the left for being too weak and not actively building a larger, more militant worker movement. That may be fair in Argentina, but the reaction was much stronger than I would have expected in the United States. The two major union federations called for limited general strikes. La Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) called for a 1 hour strike, with the Central de los Trabajadores Argentinos' (CTA) strike being for one day. I believe that these types of limited actions can do a great deal to strengthen a union movement.

There are times, like the killing of school teacher Carlos Fuentealba, when the state or businesses show, in a very powerful way, their hypocrisies -- or even their true intentions. When these events occur, they provoke a popular break from the national myths, allowing communities to truly see where they stand in relation to corporate profit and power. Using this break as a focal point for organizing can help to build popular support for a particular organization or movement. That support can be used not only to bring about national solidarity to win immediate demands, but can also be used to empower the movement and expand its demands.

One piece of empowering a movement is bringing in new support. But actions like a one day strike can help to empower the movement from within. It does so by demonstrating the power that an organization is capable of asserting. It helps to keep the union's methods of mobilization well prepared. Members will become accustomed to coming out for union actions and the union will become accustomed to calling and organizing such actions. With consistent efforts in mobilization a union should gain a better sense of its own power, allowing it to go beyond reacting and begin mobilizing on the offense.

These actions won't only demonstrate power to members of the organization, but also to the movement's targets. Businesses will realize the capacity of union organizing and begin to worry about becoming the active target of the worker movement. This anxiousness can help to bring about easier victories, possibly even preventative victories where organizing isn't happening.

The potential ripple effects of calling a few, relatively simple and well timed actions could build the power and popularity of the union movement by great strides. All we need to do is demonstrate our will to enact the solidarity that we advocate.

Carlos Fuentealba Presente!

2007-04-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, the 5th of April, Carlos Fuentealba was killed by police during a peaceful protest in the province of Neuquén. Fuentealba was a 41 year old school teacher. The teachers union, La Confederación Trabajadores de la Educación de la República Argentina, an affiliate of the Central de los Trabajadores Argentinos (CTERA-CTA), was in the middle of a struggle to improve the wages of hundreds of teachers across the province of Neuquén. As an active part of this struggle, Carlos Fuentealba was in a car taking part in a mobile blockade of Route 22 when police began attacking the blockade. According to the driver, the car was surrounded by approximately 20 police that began to hit the car with their rifles. When the car came to a stop, another officer approached the back of the car and fired a tear-gas canister into the vehicle. He fired from less than 7 meters away and Fuentealba was hit directly in the back of the head with the canister. He fell immediately into a coma from which he would not wake.

The next day, the governor of the province of Neuquén, Jorge Sobisch admitted to ordering the police repression that killed Fuentealba. Calls were immediately made for the resignation of Sobisch and the CTA called a nationwide one-day strike for Monday, April 9th. La Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), the largest union federation in Argentina also called for a one-hour work stoppage. Marches were called for in every major city in the nation.

When Monday arrived, Jorge Sobisch was seen on the news telling people to choose between the rule of law and the constitution or anarchy. As he spoke, tens of thousands of people marched in every major city in the country. In Buenos Aires, every social movement and union sent contingents to the massive demonstration that took over downtown. The offices of the province of Neuquén in Buenos Aires was shut down, and the block on which it was located was closed, filled with police, and surrounded by barricades. At noon, the city came to a standstill when the buses and subways stopped running and schools closed.

April 9th was a day of solidarity with people from all political spectrums coming together to demand an end to the impunity of government officials. But the question of where we go from here still remains. Many are demanding that this be the spark that ignites a broader struggle. There are demands that the CGT call more than a one hour strike, and show a greater deal of solidarity. There are also questions regarding the leadership of Hugo Yasky, the General Secretary of the CTERA and the CTA. Many accuse him of isolating the struggle of the teachers of Neuquén, allowing this attack to happen. At the very least many are demanding that he provide better leadership and offer a strategic plan to broaden the union’s struggle. Dozens of social movements are taking on this fight. The only thing that is clear now is that the strike of April 9th will not be the last we hear of Carlos Fuentealba.

What Is Union Success?

2007-04-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

Within the US labor movement there have been a number of debates and conflicts over the last few years. These arguments have hoped to find a way to turn the tide of a dwindling movement. They hoped to shape a “successful” labor movement. To me, these conversations have often left the idea of success lacking a thorough definition. The movement’s success seems to be a matter of membership numbers.

Is a large membership itself successful? The All-China Federation of Trade Unions has an absolutely huge membership. Although most of its members would say that the government union doesn’t actually represent them in any sense. Historically there has been a great deal of unions with large membership that most in the labor movement would not classify as successful unions. These unions have often been corrupt constructions that acted in favor of particular governments of businesses.

Maybe the politics or ideology of the union is the more important element to make a successful union. If the ACFTU wasn’t a tool at the disposal of the state, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad. It’s conceivable that it may even represent its members. There are hundreds of unions in the world that focus much of their attention on forming the “correct” ideology for the worker movement. However, very few of these have enough of a base to be considered anything other than irrelevant.

The conflict between these two tendencies misses, or rather assumes, a point that may seem to obvious to mention. The goal of any union should be the empowerment of its members to take a greater degree of control over their lives. But, empowerment may be an even more difficult concept to measure than success. A balance between the perfect politics and a real focus on building a membership is an important task set before a union that wants to empower its members. There are a few other traits that I believe a union must have to actually empower its members.

· The union must be run democratically. Rank and file members should be the final authority in union decisions. Leadership or even non-elected staff should not be in a position to force a decision upon members.
· Members should be as involved as possible in all areas of union work. Work should be done to ensure that the rank and file is active in organizing, contract negotiation, mobilizing efforts, campaign planning, and any other areas of work the union does. It’s possible that training would be needed to do this. In that case a clear system of leadership development should be established.
· Unions should be willing to represent an entire person rather than only the part of them that goes to a job. In doing this, members should feel that they can use their union as a tool to take on other fights in their lives. Universal health care, education reform, housing reform, immigrant rights, and many other areas become potential targets of the union.
· Of course, a growing membership is essential. Serious organizing drives are critical to all unions. These drives should be well-publicized and well-planned. Most importantly they should be ambitious. Our capacity to organize will grow when we feel it must. New members must be organized and their union membership should have a significant impact on their lives.

Member empowerment becomes both the goal of a union and the tool to further that goal. Helping to create that sense of power should lead to other victories that many in the union movement today are demanding. While I look to different unions in Argentina, these are some of the traits that I am hoping to find. Any union that actively maintains these traits is a union that I hope to learn from.

Why Should Americans Be Concerned About NYPD Spying?

2007-03-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

On March 25th, the New York Times published an article about the massive spying operation by the New York Police Department leading up to the Republican National Convention and the protests that were sure to follow. As is becoming increasingly clear, the NYPD infiltrated organizations that had no intent of breaking the law, let alone in a violent manner. Why really should this be cause for concern? Surely, we’ll begin to hear that tired line. “If they didn’t do anything wrong, they have nothing to fear.” Of course, there are people in this world that know better than to trust such a build up of state power.

The day before this article appeared in the Times, hundreds of thousands were gathered in the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina. They were holding a memorial for the estimated 30,000 people “disappeared” by the military dictatorship that ruled this nation for 7 years. The people in the streets of Buenos Aires were calling for punishment of those that led the killing of unionists, student activists, community leaders, and many that were simply accused of being dissidents. At the front of the march were the mothers of the disappeared, the famed Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, still seeking justice for their children.

Such a situation seems absurd to consider in the United States. Our government doesn’t have the will to violently persecute people based on political or social affiliations. But to say that ignores the US government support for the Argentine military government. It would ignore the Palmer Raids. These raids led to the imprisonment and deportation of over 10,000 labor and social justice leaders in the US. It would ignore McCarthyism. It would ignore COINTELPRO and the assassinations of those in the Black Liberation movement.

When we consider the current state of domestic control and information gathering, do we feel any safer? The PATRIOT Act, Guantánamo, NSA phone tapping, and NYPD spying should worry those in any movement that questions the current political environment. This style of expanding state power needs to be resisted. This is not a road that we can afford to go down. Just ask the Madres in Buenos Aires.