The brutal police action to evict 57 workers from a textile plant they had occupied in Buenos Aires, and subsequent violent attacks on protestors supporting the occupation, have triggered angry opposition from trade unionists, socialists, artists and academics both in Argentina and around the world.
The workforce had taken over the factory in December 2001 after its owners, the Brukman brothers, had abandoned it, leaving months of wages unpaid, debts to utilities, and machines broken down.
The workers fixed the machines, paid off the debts, attracted new customers, paid themselves decent wages, and turned the factory back into a thriving enterprise making suits.
But then an early ruling in their favour by a judge now no longer in office was overturned by an eviction order signed by a federal judge, in which he declared that "Life and physical integrity have no supremacy over economic interests". This is a crude but effective summary of the capitalist system as a whole, which has been teetering on the brink of collapse in many areas of Argentina as a result of long-standing economic crisis, leaving a massive 58 percent of the population living in poverty.
The Brukman occupation was only one of almost 200 plants taken over by their workforce across the country in the last 18 months, most of which have continued to produce a variety of goods ranging from tractors to ice cream
But while some of these occupations have won legal backing, the eviction ruling against the Brukman workers can be seen as a key effort to roll back a movement of resistance in advance of the Presidential elections on April 27.
• after the workers had been forcibly evicted in a night attark as
hundreds of police using tear gas, guns and attack dogs, their attempt to get back into the plant to complete an order for 3,000 pairs of dress trousers was met by a vicious onslaught involving water cannon, rubber bullets and live ammunition.
Caught up in the attack was the solidarity movement that has grown up around the occupation: a protest of around 7,000 peohospital. it being used by the workers. Toronto Globe then wrecked machinery in the factory. ple was savagely attacked, the surrounding area was occupied by police with machine guns, and supporters were pursued by armed police when they ran for safety into nearby University buildings and a children's
Even the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, who had lent their support to the protests outside the factory were attacked by the police, who then took over the plant -where they smashed machinery to prevent
99.
Incensed by this destruction, Naomi Klein, in a comment on the clash in the
and Mail, describes Argentina's rulers as a new type of "Luddites", and quotes one of the Brukman workers, Celia Martinez explaining why the Women workers from the occupied Brukman plant run from the tear gas and bullets of charging riot cops (top right) who government was so keen to repress them:
"They are afraid of us because we have Fund. shown that if we can manage a factory, we can also manage a country"
That's more than can be said for the front-runner in the coming elec. tion, former President Carlos Menem, who presided over legendary corruption and mounting economic crisis workers." during his two terms of office from 1989The two judges behind the order for the eviction of the Brukman workers, originally appointed under the vicious Videla dictatorship from 1976-1983, are linked with Menem and his platform of restoring "order" and a strong currency through a new deal with the International Monetary
In a statement calling for international solidarity with the Brukman workers, the Fourth International stresses that "Workers of taken back factories in Argentina demonstrate every day that the companies can work without bosses, although the bosses cannot make them work without their
If the bosses under Menem make a fresh attempt to solve their crisis at the expense of the workers, there are likely to be more battles, in which the ruthless logic and laws of capitalist economics must be confronted. • Argentina Solidarity campaign: [email protected]