Zanon is a ceramics factory in Neuquen, in the south-west of Argentina, which has been occupied for over a year by its workers. The Zanon workers continue to produce despite several attempts to evict them, which they have successfully prevented.
They have won powerful support from other workers in the community – from teachers, health sector workers, unemployed organisations and the Mapuche indigenous population of the region. They have been an inspiration to other struggles and have played a vital role in building solidarity with others as well as winning it for their own cause.
Zanon workers toured Europe late last year and made valuable links with workers in Italy and in Britain, including with Unison and the RMT.
Despite this support they are now facing a new attempt to evict them. Judge Norma Poza has authorised the forcible eviction of the Zanon ceramics factory. If this ruling is carried out it will mean the violent expulsion of the workforce.
As soon as Zanon’s workers heard about the ruling they sent a delegation to speak with the authorities, but both local and national government departments refused to receive them, despite the fact that the delegation was accompanied by local MPs from opposition parties.
The Zanon workers have organised an intense campaign and a huge number of activities since the ruling. They have reinforced the guard in the factory with the help of the unemployed organisations like the MTD and have received strong support from the Alto Valle co-ordinating committee and from various social and political organisations.
A committee for the defence of the Zanon factory was set up on 17 March. This committee is composed of social movements, trade unions and political organisations, and is committed to the defence of workers’ management. The provincial grouping of the CTA – one of the three trade union confederations in Argentina – has promised to call for a provincial strike if the eviction is carried out.
The third national meeting of occupied factories took place in the city of Rosario on 15 March; there the call for the defence of the factories was ratified under the slogan “An injury to one is an injury to all".
The Madres de Plaza de Mayo, the mothers of the disappeared – the thousands of disappeared democratic activists murdered by the military regime of the 1970s and early 1980s – have expressed their support for the Zanon workers’ struggle and they are organising a Caravan of Solidarity, led by their president, Hebe de Bonafini. The caravan will be leaving Buenos Aires on 28 March and will be arriving in Neuquen the following day to participate in a rally called by the workers of the factory under the slogans:
* Stop the eviction
* For the defence of jobs and self-management at Zanon
* Nationalisation without compensation under workers’ control
In a country plagued by unemployment, where workers are only offered a miserable 150 pesos benefit in return for community work, Zanon workers have shown that another way is possible. A month ago they created 30 new jobs that were distributed among unemployed people in the region.
The capitalists have shown that they can neither keep the factory open nor guarantee jobs, let alone provide a solution to the high level of unemployment in the country.
The ceramic workers are now able to pay themselves a wage of 800 pesos and have guaranteed work and food for 1,500 people. On a small scale, this is an example of what the working class could more generally do if it held political power. That explains why the government and bosses and their political parties want to silence the Zanon struggle – and they are counting on the help of the trade union bureaucracy.
Last week the radical Canadian author of No Logo, Naomi Klein, visited Neuquen province in the course of researching and filming a documentary on the phenomenon of the occupied factories in Argentina. She declared: “Zanon is seen all over the world as a symbol and an example of a new movement", and told the local press that she was impressed both by “the sense of communion in the factory” as well as by “what has been achieved by the workers".
Let’s spread the example of Zanon across the country, the continent and the world – don’t let the bosses to attack it.