Hotel Bauen

After living in Argentina for over 8 months now I have had considerable amount of interesting experiences; some trying, some enlightening but for the most part they have always been interesting. A large portion of these experiences have brought myself into direct contact with the local culture here and have been very informative about the modern social and political climate. I almost always have to include the political side of things because politics here is something that has a daily and direct influence on people’s lives. The events of the past few years, especially the economic crisis of 2001, have shaped the lives and mindset of the citizens here. You can see signs of it everywhere in Buenos Aires, from the socialist slogans sprayed-painted on building walls, to the mass marches and demonstrations that have become an almost daily occurrence, to the hundreds of local assemblies that have sprung up in the different neighborhoods around the city. One of the more notable experiences for me came when I attended a meeting for the launch of a new political magazine at hotel conference center. The magazine was connected with various social movement and parties throughout the Americas, even including representative from the USA, so needless to say I was a bit surprised that it was being held in a very classy venue. I kept thinking to myself, ‘this setting seems a bit ironic for a meeting of socialist militants and thinkers.’ It was only later that I found out that the hotel I was sitting in was Hotel Bauen, a worker controlled and run cooperative. As I learned more I discovered that Hotel Bauen was only one part of a wider national movement by workers to take control their working environments. Let me explain a bit.

The movement, known as Movimiento Nacional de Empresas Recuperadas (National Movement of Recuperated Businesses) or MNER, began in the provinces independent of any party or organization when some factories were shut down because they were no longer making a profit. For the owners of the factories this made perfect sense being followers of the capitalistic model, where the goal is to generate profit. It follows that if the factories were no longer turning out a profit there would be no reason to keep them in operation under this model. Another factor leading to the closure of some factories was an increase in labor activism, which in turn led to serious conflicts between workers demanding improved working conditions and owners reluctant to make any concessions. Unfortunately for the workers this left them without jobs and in pretty dire straights. After a few months of unemployment and false promises by the former owners to reopen the factories, the workers took matters into their own hands.

After gathering together in small groups and discussing the common problems facing them as workers and a community, they decided to reoccupy the factories and start production again. They organized the production under a democratic system independent of any management or bosses and began to successfully operate the factories again. Following a cornerstone of Marxism – democratic control of the means of production by the workers themselves – the factory workers have succeeded in keeping the places running for over 5 years now.

Inspired by the example, other successful worker takeovers have spread throughout Argentina. The 2001 crisis have left no shortage of opportunities for these sorts of workers victories to rise from the ashes of the failed neo-liberal order that was adopted here in the 90’s. The movement has since spread to Buenos Aires, in this instance in the form of a hotel, Hotel Bauen, where the workers currently call the shots. The history of Hotel Bauen is an interesting one in itself. It’s a four-star hotel that was founded un the run up to the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, a time that saw large scale modernization and investment by the state, at that time under a military dictatorship. The state provided the owner of Hotel Bauen, Marcelo Iurcovich, with loans from the National Development Bank to help get the hotel up and running.

Now here is where it gets really interesting. During the privatization of state enterprises that took place during the 1990’s the National Bank of Development took its turn and was privatized and then absorbed into the larger National Bank of Argentina, bringing its debt owed it, including that of Hotel Bauen, with it. This privatization of the National Bank resulted in situation that almost defies belief. The debt owed the bank, and hence the state, by private companies was assumed by the state of Argentina as a means of making the bank more appealing to potential buyers. Did you get that? The money that the state loaned out to private interests in the 70’s is now money owed by the state to private companies today. This is the crazy logic that the Argentines have been living with since 2001. Of course money owed by the state means that the people are going to have to pay in the end and they did when in December 2001 3/4 of their savings were liquidated to keep the state apparatus from defaulting. The Hotel Bauen was closed shortly after this on December 28, 2001 due in part to the chaos it helped to create.

In March of 2003, with the support of MNER, the hotel’s former workers occupied the building. While they struggled to gain ownership over the hotel they began to make repairs to the building and eventually reopened for business. Since 2003, the Bauen cooperative has gone from 32 to over 150 employees, opened a street side café (whose tile floors come from FaSinPat, another worker controlled ceramics factory) and have equipped over 200 rooms. The hotel today has shown rising profits and serves as a free meeting place for progressive and workers’ groups. It was at one such meeting for the opening of an inter-American political/social magazine that I first came into contact with the worker control movement.

With such striking success for workers there was bound to be a backlash from reactionary forces. This came in late 2005 when the hotel was informed that the legal right of the workers to run the hotel as a business was not permitted. State officials attempted to tape off the entrances to the hotel, but the workers quickly removed this tape and the hotel has remained in operation to this day. There is still an on going legal dispute though, with the former owner Iurcovich heading the opposition. It is a very heated issue in the city right now as private capital is determined, if not to stop the workers control movement, then at least see it come under state supervision and control. But the people and independent press have also taken up the issue on the side of the workers and over 50,000 volunteers have been mobilized in support.

It is an incredibly interesting movement and it is by no means limited to Argentina. Democratic worker controlled cooperatives have been sprouting up all over Latin America, most notably in Venezuela. As is usually the case, this is a movement that we in the USA, and specifically in the Northland, can learn a lot from. If you are interested in learning more about the Argentine movement there is a good book in English about the phenomenon by Naomi Klein called Sin Patron. Check it out and more importantly take an active part in the struggle. It is not an issue that is only confined to Argentina. ¡Hasta Socialismo Siempre!

Buenos Aires Update

Ok, so I am going to try something a bit different. Staring right now I am going to maintain a blog about my activities and life here in Argentina. This is a bit of a departure from the blog I had been writing about politics and current events, so I just wanted to make that clear. It is my intention to keep both blogs up and running now that there is a clear distinction between them. Oh and of course there is the blog I run where I review all that I have been reading. Don’t worry all enthusiasts of that blog; I have no plans to stop that either. That being said lets get down to business about Bs As.

It’s been a while since I gave a general update as to my life here, so let me just bring everyone up to speed. I recently moved to a different part of Buenos Aires in a barrio called Flores. It is located roughly in the middle of the city, not to be confused with the city center, which is the nerve center of Argentina. That is located east of me towards the Rio de la Plata. I must say that I am glad I am not living in such close proximity to the downtown as before, it was just a bit to hectic for me. Flores has a much more relaxed atmosphere to it and that is something I can appreciate. It also a typical middle-class Buenos Aires barrio which means that I am almost completely immersed in the culture and society with no other foreigners around. In theory this helps mean improve my Spanish skills and gets me more acquainted with the Porteños, but this is not always the case in reality.

My roommate Carlos is a history teacher and university student here in Bs As. He is cool guy as far as I can tell and one of the reasons I was really looking forward to moving in with him is because is Argentine and therefore he would provide an excellent opportunity for me to practice Spanish. Unfortunately I think Carlos had the same idea as I did because he speaks English to me at almost every chance he gets. Fair enough, just trying to get practice at another language, I can appreciate that. It just ends up working out kind of weird with me trying to speak to him in Spanish and he answering back in English. Practice is practice though.

My typical day is a bit hard to describe seeing as I don’t really have a set routine. That’s because I have been giving private English lessons to Argentines. The pay is definitely better than working for a language institute or school, but the drawback is that students can be unreliable, resulting in an always-changing schedule for me. Well I normally teach about four days a week in various places all over the city. On these days my main focus is usually making sure I have a solid lesson planned for my class and giving myself enough time to commute. This can be tricky seeing as the public transport system involves buses, subway, and trains, all of which can be a pain in the ass for a multitude of reasons. Number one on the list is the varying degree of people packed on to any one collectivo (public bus) or subte (subway) car. Lets just say that it can be a tight squeeze sometimes. Another major problem that I face on a daily basis has to do with money. Not so much the lack paper bills, although this too can be a problem for me, but the lack of coins. Coins are a rare commodity here and they are essential for taking a but ride anywhere, which means I find myself in dire straights at least three times a week wondering how in the hell I am going to be able to hop on the 53 to get where I need to go when I have only 5 centavos. The gravity of the situation really becomes apparent when I reflect upon the highlight of my day yesterday. It occurred when I was putting on a recently washed pair of jeans and, lo and behold, I found a 50 centavo coin in my pocket. No joke, this was by far the highlight of the day and it was by no means a bad day.

I try to spend the rest of my time not teaching in constructive pursuits, whether this is taking Spanish classes, doing a good deal of reading, writing, and independent study, playing guitar, or spending time with friends I have made down here. I have also recently tried to take advantage of my free weekends by venturing out different places in the proximity of the capital that I have yet to see. I also enjoy drinking the national drink mate at any chance I get and I count this as completely constructive activity.

Well that should bring everyone up-to-date a bit on what I have been up lately. I will be posting entries about once a week or so if all goes well, so check back to see what I have been doing. Please fell free to leave a comment or post something yourself, it is always great to hear from anyone of you. In fact make it a point to write something, I don’t hear from you all enough. Until next time, chau….