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The Hard Road From Successful Strike To Successful
Cooperative
We visited Aparejos Electricos on March 18, 2000, in a bustling northern
suburb of the giant megalopolis of Mexico City. It is a machine shop that
makes other machines. The twenty-eight members of the co-op have been working
together for many years, first as a traditional capitalist firm and subsequently
for the last four years as a co-op. When we arrived, the head of production,
Luis Felipe Gomez, showed us around. We spent an hour touring the huge
machine shop; as we walked around listening to Luis explain all the different
machines, bit by bit we were joined by other members of the co-op. They
joined in explaining details to us and also mentioned that as a co-op they
had reduced production time for a hoist from seven weeks to just two weeks-a
remarkable accomplishment which attests to the higher productivity of cooperative
labor. We looked at the recently constructed squash court, and then proceeded
to the office. There about ten of the co-op members and ourselves spent
two hours discussing the history of Aparejos Electricos, the advantages
and disadvantages of co-ops, specific problems such as regaining clients
after a three-year long strike, the problem of having the confidence to
run a business without a ñmanager,î and others. Though sheer necessity
compelled them to become a co-op-they previously had no social change agenda
to become one -they were proud of their success and derived fulfillment
from being in control of their work life. Jesus Rojas, a labor lawyer and
de facto manager of Aparejos Electricos, wrote the following description.
[Note by Bob Stone and Betsy Bowman.]
Aparejos Electricos is a cooperative dedicated to the production of
overhead hoists and cranes using technology developed by the American firm,
P&H. The cooperative was launched at the end of July, 1996 as a result
of a strike that had lasted more than three years. After the boss closed
the shop, the government authorities awarded us the factory as a form of
compensation for the violation of our labor rights. This fact left us with
few alternatives, given the following circumstances:
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we were extremely demoralized, skeptical, and above all, burdened with
many debts as a consequence of the long strike;
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the majority of the machines handed over to us had been in use for more
than 25 years, and had no market value;
-
we also had to confront our leaders and union representatives1, who were
only interested in benefitting themselves;
We decided to pursue two paths: we would sell the machinery, while at the
same time continue to work with the existing raw materials, taking advantage
of our 25 years of experience. But first we had to face the fact that nobody
had any training in how to run a business. An additional, and severe, problem
was that, since the factory had been closed for more than three years,
we had lost the better part of our clients, who had naturally sought out
other suppliers.
During this process we realized that the majority of our competitors
were engineers who had worked at our firm. Once they had learned the business
they quit and set up their own firms, offering the same product at a ridiculously
low price. We also learned during this time that the bosses unite when
they confront the workers, spreading the word-and unfortunately weÍve contributed
our two cents here as well-that cooperatives are synonomous with internal
conflicts, problems of tardiness, and a lack of professionalism, insecurity,
poor quality, etc.
Because we could never sell the machinery, we were in a sense forced
to develop the cooperative as the only economic alternative for our families,
and if we wanted to stay in the market, we would first have to overcome
the difficulties just described. This is the struggle we have begun. (To
be continued....; Jesus Rojas and the Aparejos co-op can be reached at:
Aparejos@data.net.mx
)
1. All unions in Mexico (with a few exceptions) are so intertwined with
MexicoÍs ruling political party, the PRI, that they long ago ceased to
represent the interests of the workers. On the contrary, the union leadership
makes the union into the ideal instrument for applying the Mexican governmentÍs
policies which are designed by the IMF and which contravene the workersÍ
interests. Furthermore, the union bureaucracy itself, like the government
bureaucracy in general, is a great source of graft and corruption.
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