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Revolution without Ideology Naomi Klein Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and the money. "We waited until night," said Brukman Fences and Windows worker Celia Martinez. No one came." Getting the keys from the doorman, workers slept An extraordinary chapter in capitalist history is at the factory that night. They've been running it ever being written today in Argentina. Call it revolution since. They've paid the outstanding bills, attracted without ideology, or serendipitous employee owner new clients and without profits and management ship. Call it a reminder that property rights originate salaries to worry about paid themselves steady at the point of a gun. Whatever words we use cannot salaries. All these decisions have been made by vote do justice to the remarkable events themselves. In in open assemblies of the 58 workers. "I don't know Buenos Aires, every week brings news of a new why the owners had such a hard time," Martinez worker occupation-a four-star hotel now run by says. "I don't know much about accounting, but for its cleaning staff, a supermarket taken over by its me it's easy: addition and subtraction." clerks, a regional airline about to be turned into a Like other garment factories, Brukman is filled cooperative by the pilots and attendants. In Trotsky with women hunched over sewing machines, eyes ist journals around the world, Argentina's occupied straining and fingers flying. What makes Bruk factories are giddily hailed as the dawn of a socialist man different are the sounds. Along with the roar of utopia, because workers have "seized the means of machines is the Bolivian folk music, coming from production." In The Economist, the worker-run fac a tape deck at the back of the room. And there are tories are described as a threat to the sacred principlesoft voices, as older workers show younger ones new of private property. The truth lies in between stitches. "Before." Martinez says, "they wouldn't let Take the Brukman textile factory in Buenos Aires. us get up from our workspaces or listen to music. But Brukman has been producing men's suits for 50 why not listen to music, to lift the spirits a bit?" years, and since December it's been doing it without In dozens of cases like Brukman's, workers have managers. The means of production weren't seized been awarded legal expropriation by the courts they were simply picked up after being abandoned much like squatters allowed to claim ownership of by their owners. The factory had been in decline occupied buildings. Lawyers of the Brukman work for years, with debts to utility companies piling up ers argue that factory owners have violated principles Seamstresses had seen salaries slashed from 100 of business by failing to pay employees and creditors, pesos a week to two pesos--not enough for bus fare. while collecting huge subsidies from the state. Why In December 2002, the workers demanded a can't the state now insist that the indebted compa- travel allowance. The owners, pleading poverty, told nies' assets continue to serve the public with steady them to wait at the factory while they looked for jobs? In Brukman's case, the argument hasn't worked. of the sheer magnitude of what is underway. In the A federal judge has ordered the workers evicted, past 18 months, almost 200 factories employing writing-in a remarkable statement--that "Life and more than 10,000 nationwide have been taken over physical integrity have no supremacy over economic and run by workers. interests." Property rights trump all other rights. It's a new kind of labor movement, based not Those preeminent rights were enforced in April, on the power to stop working the traditional union when police carried out the judge's eviction order tactie) but on the dogged determination to keep in the middle of the night. They turned the entire working no matter what. It's a demand driven not by block into a military zone guarded by machine guns dogma but by realism: In a country where 58 per and attack dogs. Unable to get into the factory and cent of the population is in poverty, workers are a complete an order for 3,000 pairs of dress trousers, paycheck away from having to scavenge to survive. the workers gathered a huge crowd of supporters A revolution may be underway, but it's not driven by and announced it was time to go back to work. At ideology. The specter haunting Argentina's occupied 5p.m., 50 middle-aged seamstresses in no-nonsense factories is not communism, but indigence. haircuts, sensible shoes, and blue smocks walked up to the police fence. Someone pushed, the fence fell. The Brukman women-unarmed and arm in arm- slowly walked through They had taken only a few steps when the police began shooting: tear gas, water cannons, rubber bul- lets, then lead. Dozens were injured--for the crime of trying to sew trousers. "They are afraid of us because we have shown that, if we can manage a factory, we can also manage a country," Martinez said. "That's why this govern- ment decided to repress us." There may also be fear The aid reading helps you to develop a process for reading and analyzing the cases. What I expect in your case report: a. What is the issue/problem b. What are the important factors c. What are alternatives d. What is your recommendation and why