This article was published in the issue of November 2017 of the newsletter DAWN Informs.
A new International Workers’ Economy Meeting was held from 30 August to 2 September at the sites of ‘recovered’ companies in Argentina.[1] The four days of intense discussion brought together workers from self-managed and recovered companies,[2] social organizations and trade unions, researchers and university students committed to self-management practices and the alternative project of a new economy. More than 500 representatives from 25 countries attended this meeting, including delegates from Croatia, South Africa, Canada, Turkey, China, Bangladesh, France, Spain, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia as well as Argentina.
This initiative was an invitation to consider economic systems from a ‘workers’ economy’ perspective; meaning an economy generated and sustained by sectors dealing with the engendering of their own salaries, either individually as informal workers or collectively, in cooperatives or other type of self-managed organizations, in rural or urban areas. This economy is in permanent confrontation with capital, even if unnoticed, due to the absence of ‘employers’ at worker managed operations.[3]
Different core themes that comprise the economy from and for workers perspectives were debated on panels, in workshops and working groups. The topics included political and economic analysis of the global capitalism crisis; self-management as an alternative project; the challenges of unionism and other forms of worker organization; the precariousness and informalization of labor; the ways in which the economy is integrated and connected; the role of the State; and popular education and knowledge production. Based on those core themes, a gathering space on ‘the workers’ economy and issues relating to gender’ was organized, which drew a the strong participation of women, migrants, cooperative supporters, students, trade unionists, teachers, GLTTBI activists and feminists who gathered to debate and design proposals aimed at building a workers’ economy.
This article seeks to trace the origins of this agenda of self-managing women workers coordinating in global and regional spaces. It will also expose the different aspects and challenges that feminist agendas reveal in spaces where self-managed and cooperative workers organize themselves.
Women workers at the international economy meetings
Ten years after the first ‘International Workers’ Economy Meeting’[4] held in Buenos Aires in 2007, the organizers were able to gather workers from recovered companies, cooperatives, social organizations, trade unions, teachers and scholars from across the world. The careful planning was carried out by activists from North and South who gave shape to the global meetings, from the first in 2007 and second in 2009 in Buenos Aires, in Mexico (2011), Brazil (Joao Pessoa, 2013) and Venezuela (Punto Fijo, 2015). Since 2014 the gatherings have been held back to back with regional meetings in South America, Europe and North and Central America.
In a context where neoliberal policies are reinforced and governments have a made a shift towards the right, several questions arise about the feasibility of an economy project that serves the interests of workers. One of the biggest challenges raised at the ‘VI International Workers’ Economy Meeting’ concerns progressing towards a ‘movement’ that could coordinate the different approaches that have emerged during the past ten years. In my opinion, another significant challenge has been the one raised by women workers within the organization in the creation of an alternative project of the so-called ‘workers’ economy’.
To shape this agenda, self-managed women workers took their own steps in each of the global and regional meeting spaces. On one hand, we can point to affirmative action dealing with communication strategies, securing speaking slots in panels, etc. Inclusive language began being used in communication activity and even in the name of the meeting, also referring to ‘women workers’ in the announcements. On the other hand, self managed women workers’ presentations aimed at the core discussion of themes, mainstreaming and contexts that shaped each meeting.
It is possible to trace some milestones along the meetings’ trajectory. The first one goes back to the 2009 ‘International Workers’ Economy Meeting’ in the debate during the panel on ‘Informal, precarious and menial work: social exclusion or reshaping the ways of working in global capitalism?’ At that time, female picketers[5] and transvestites of textile cooperatives challenged the male representatives of popular economics on the need to recognize the diversity of protagonists in self-management and their experiences. The second milestone goes back to the ‘V International Workers’ Economy Meeting’ in Venezuela in 2015, where self-managed workers expressed, in different workshops, the need to incorporate ‘gender issues’ in future meetings.
In 2016, we continued along this path at the ‘South American Workers’ Economy Meeting’ in Uruguay. Preparatory activities were organized on a theme that focused on gender issues, as well as a workshop on ‘Production and reproduction for life’ on the care economy. This was the first workshop to embrace the ideas of social organization of care in self-managed projects, which was starting to gain support from different countries through networks and cooperatives.[6] Although most of the participants were women, proposals and conclusions enabled the design of a feminist work agenda and the questioning of male cooperatives activists who did not attend the workshop.
Without feminism, the struggle is halfway
Within the framework of the ‘VI International Workers’ Economy Meeting’, under the theme ‘The workers’ economy and issues relating to gender’, commissions were organized with submission of papers, a panel and a workshop where scholars and workers from Uruguay, Mexico, France, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Kurdistan and Argentina made presentations. These spaces not only relied on the coordinated efforts of different organizations[7] but also became a source of global solidarity among workers. It promoted the development of proposals within the Organizing Committee for the meetings and encouraged becoming more geared towards labor organizations that could bring together these experiences and concepts.
In this context, the workshop on ‘Challenges and strategies of self-managed women workers’ was organized, addressing cooperatives related to the sector, trade unions, teachers and researchers working on this issue. Based on workers’ practice, the idea was to reflect on the conflicts related to the sexual division of work experienced daily in different areas of self-managed work. The place women occupy in collective work spaces was discussed and also considered the activities women do at home, in the neighborhood and in the community. Reflections were held in small workshops on the role that these forms of segregation, gaps and asymmetries play in the workers’ economy, what challenges lie ahead and what strategies could be collectively built.
Proposals included calling on the self-managed workers’ movement to coordinate public policy demands that reflect women’s needs (for example, provision of care services); encouragement for workers to draft changes in the regulations of cooperatives and federations to transform unequal gender relations; the inclusion of the social security issue from a gender perspective, taking workers into account (formal, informal, with disabilities); the creation of care spaces for boys and girls at International Workers’ Economy Meetings; the coordination of migrants’ struggles with the workers’ economy; and the implementation of democratic ways of taking the floor at plenary sessions and assemblies of the organizations.
In a moment when socio-labor rights have gone backwards and neo-conservative governments have advanced, organizing the field of the self-managed economy faces challenges such as the strengthening of neoliberal and extractive policies that reduce the margin of self-managed work; the advance of militarization and wars in territories where the reorganization of the economy is in the hands of women;[8] and the de-patriarchalization of workers’ organizations and cooperatives. In this sense, the challenge of coordinating a feminist proposal with self-management practices will allow us to rethink the alternatives to the model of accumulation that has proved to be seriously limited.
Here we find increasingly strong bonds when thinking from a perspective that considers the sustainability of life.[9] During the workshop of women workers the exchanges revealed that it is essential to think about the conditions that enable the sustainability of our own struggles. At this point, the reflection on praxis goes beyond the cooperative space. This perspective could be raised in other organizational spaces such as trade unions, territorial and environmental organizations, where more visibility can be given to the care work that sustains daily life, productive work and political activism.
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[1] Such as Cooperativa Textiles Pigüé and Hotel BAUEN
[2] Since the mid-nineties and the beginning of the XXI century in Argentina, the recovery of companies was a common way of demanding employment in a context where the industrial production system was breaking down. This was reproduced in other countries of Latin America, with a few differences in terms of the possibilities and limitations of the legal framework (in most cases, the “worker cooperative” became a legal umbrella).
[3] Ruggeri, Andrés (2016) “Los distintos caminos de la economía de los trabajadores”, self-management.
[4] The host of the first meeting was the Open University Program of the University of Buenos Aires. For more information: Ruggeri, Andrés (2015) “El Encuentro Internacional ‘La Economía de los Trabajadores’, un espacio de debate sobre la autogestión”, Idelcoop Magazine, 216: 115-127.
[5] Mobilizations and roadblocks were typical actions of the “picketing movement,” held for an indefinite period, sometimes days and even weeks. “Demand for work” was the slogan of these movements and those who participated in the mobilizations identified themselves as “unemployed workers.” These mobilizations were in response to the increased unemployment and work precariousness experienced throughout the decade in Argentina.
[6] Among them, Cooperativa Caminos from Uruguay, Cooperativa 19 de diciembre from Argentina and the Inter-University Network to provide visibility on gender issues in social economy (CIET-UNR, FFyL-ICA-UBA, RT-UNAJ, UNLPam, UDELAR, UCE).
[7] It was organized by trade unions (PIT-CNT), Centro de Formación y Documentación en Procesos Autogestionarios [Center of Training and Documentation of Self-Managed Processes] (Uruguay); Espacio de Economía Feminista de la Sociedad de Economía Crítica [Feminist Economy Space of the Society of Critical Economy]; cooperativist women from Textiles Pigüe, Cooperativa 19 de diciembre (Argentina) and Caminos (Uruguay) and the aforementioned Inter-University Network of social economy and gender.
[8] For example, the experience of the Kurdish Women’s Liberation Movement https://cooperativa.cat/es/autogobierno-economico-en-la-autonomia-democratica-el-ejemplo-de-bakur-kurdistan-turco/
[9] See: Carrasco, Cristina (2014) “Con voz propia. La economía feminista como apuesta teórica y política”, La Oveja Roja / Viento Sur.