English

The judge, in this part of the judgment, made two different interpretations. She accepted as valid and satisfactory the “offer” of the “Morando Law” that proposed that Mercoteles employ the cooperative workers, among other theoretical concessions (like the recognition of the costs of repairs made to the building by the cooperative up to an obviously insufficient amount of AR$150,000). Along the same lines, she confirmed that Mercoteles S.A. made a formal offer “…to contribute to the solution of the conflict… Read More »BAUEN, day 77

Next, she quickly concluded that there was no option but to “return” the building at Callao 360 to the registered owner, which is to say, Mercoteles, but that, as a judge, she considered it prudent to contemplate the “negative consequences” of this restitution, which she sagely deduced would be the loss of the cooperators’ jobs. She then cites several cases, taken from the website of The National Movement of Factories Recovered by the Workers Recovered (MNFRT), which were… “almost always… Read More »BAUEN, day 76

After reviewing some facts relative to the history of the hotel as of the bankruptcy (without even mentioning the prior circumstances) and grounding herself in the passage of Law 1914 (the “Morando Law”), Hualde went on to explain that in her “visual inspection” of May 17, 2006, she could see that: (…) the poor state of preservation of some sectors of the building could result in risk to the health and life of the members of the cooperative and other… Read More »BAUEN, day 75

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