Labour process and decision-making in factories under workers' self-management: empirical evidence from Argentina

Abstract

This paper focuses on the process of workers' self-management brought about by a wave of factory occupations, which has taken place in Argentina in the last few years, with the support of preliminary evidence from qualitative fieldwork conducted in four factories. The aim of the paper is to explore the dynamics of the decision-making and the re-organisation of the labour process in the light of the constraints imposed on self-management by market mediations. The act of occupying a factory, gives room to workers' control of the labour process and to a more democratic, collective decision-making. But workers' need to compete in the market reduces the sphere of collective decision, leading to centralisation of power and divisions between directive and productive workers, hampering the possibility for workers to enrich their job and avoid self-exploitation.