A new actor comes onto the scene: Judge Hualde The workers had little time to celebrate the triumph in this trial, because very shortly after, May 16, 2006, the bankruptcy judge of the Bauen, Paula Hualde, showed up at the hotel to do a “visual inpection.” She had replaced Favier Dubois. According to the workers, was doing the inspection because of a petition by Mercoteles that asked her to do so.1 This was how Judge Hualde appeared on the scene… Read More »BAUEN, day 74
Diego Carbone, the lawyer that began to represent the cooperative in place of Florencia Kravetz, declared: “The testimony of Samuel Kaliman, was presented as General Director of Mercoteles, was shameful. He said that he did not know the address of the legal headquarters of the company, the stockholder composition, or when the directors met. Why do they want to bother us? Because this group of workers shined a light where they wanted shadows.”1 The scene of the dismal performance by… Read More »BAUEN, day 73
Do you know what a front man is? Also, among the considerations in the national bill is the relationship between the Iurcoviches and Mercoteles, which had been made obvious in an unusual trial concerning a complaint by Mercoteles for the violation of closure signs in Contravention Court n.° 3. The prosecutor himself, Adrián Martín, declared that: (…) this trial should have found solutions in other political or judicial instances – such as bankruptcy proceedings. If that had occurred, this process… Read More »BAUEN, day 72
The first bill was presented July 20, 2006, to the Congress of the Nation by a group of legislators led by Francisco “The Beard” Gutiérrez, the historical leader of the Metalworkers’ Union in Quilmes, the first union to promote factory recovery, at the end of the 80s.1 Gutiérrez was accompanied by a group mostly made up of kirchnerista deputies and a few who belonged to smaller blocs.2 In contrast to Kravetz’s bill, which was presented in the Legislature of the… Read More »BAUEN, day 71
Chapter 10 Eviction order The “Morando Law” was unable to impose its conditions, and the commission that was expected to meet was never assembled. The cooperative asked the Head of Government at the time, Jorge Telerman, to veto the regulation, but the functionary limited himself to not enforcing it and presenting a bill that modified it, which was never approved. In practice, this situation meant abandoning the Legislature of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires as the place to attempt… Read More »BAUEN, day 70
Sidebar: Cromañón, or the complicity of the state and business owners ON December 31, 2004, a fire at a place known as the Republic of Cromagnon (managed by Omar Emir Chabán, a well-established business owner on the Argentine rock scene) claimed the lives of 194 people, the large majority of them young people. The survivors had with serious physical and psychological aftereffects, and some even committed suicide over the next few months (counting Martín Cisneros, who took his own life… Read More »BAUEN, day 69
In this assembly (which is recorded, once more, in Pierucci’s documentary), there was a rather intense debate between the workers, the leaders of the MNER (including Murúa and Resino), and Diego Kravetz. Kravetz tried to argue that the bill of temporary occupancy was going to lose, and that Morando’s bill was going to win the vote (which it ultimately did by 29 votes, a relatively low but sufficient number) but was going to be vetoed. Kravetz told the assembly: It’s… Read More »BAUEN, day 68
Agitated session in the Legislature The climate became more and more confrontational until, on December 6th, 2005, the bills came up for a vote on the floor. Kravetz’s bill did not get enough votes to be approved, and above all, to defeat Morando’s bill. This bill was presented to counter the one that sought to expropriate the hotel for workers, providing a “voteable” facade for various legislators with a certain agenda. Federico Tornarelli explains: The proposed bill called the two… Read More »BAUEN, day 67
The fight was not limited to Parliament or the judiciary. In contrast to other former owners of recovered businesses, the Iurcoviches, now characterized as Mercoteles, had an active communication policy. Internet portals and some important media outlets produced articles every so often that were no more than veiled propaganda in favor of the return of the bosses and attacks on the workers. On June 28, 2005, Mercoteles even published an editorial in the newspaper La Nación directed at the Legislature,… Read More »BAUEN, day 66
But the BAUEN was not among the thirteen, nor those added later. Federico Tonarelli, explains that, “like the expropriation bills that were approved for Chilavert, Grissinópoli, Ghelco, or the Patricio Print Shop, the BAUEN’s, presented by Diego Kravetz, was also for temporary occupancy of two years.” The bill, number 1505, was presented June 16th, 2005, and co-sponsored by legislators Ana Suppa, Mónica Bianchi, Silvia La Ruffa, Fernando Cantero, Fernando Melillo, Sergio Molina, Daniel Betti, Milcíades Peña, and Arturo Floreal, who… Read More »BAUEN, day 65