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Chapter 7 The recovered hotel While Rosalía Peñarrieta’s birthday was the key to rehabilitating the event rooms, the key to the guest rooms, which is to say, the hotel itself, was still missing. In spite of the efforts of the cooperative workers, a year after the occupation, they were still not in conditions to accommodate guests. Twenty stories of hotel rooms needed furniture, sheets, repairs, hot water, paint, etc. All that was being done, little by little, story by story.… Read More »BAUEN, day 47

The party was held at the beginning of October of 2003, and marked the return of food and hospitality activities to the building at Callao 360—this time, without the boss. As Plácido says: The bitterness of not being able to sufficiently satisfy the needs of my family for a year was mixed with the sweetness of being able to pay the debt to my daughter, thanks to the solidarity of all the compañeros. So, I went down in history as… Read More »BAUEN, day 46

Two plans were combined: on the one hand, Plácido wanted to organize his daughter’s birthday party, though he didn’t have the resources, and was trying get them through the solidarity of various sectors; and on the other hand, the workers at the BAUEN cooperative no longer only wanted to help out a compañero who had helped them to recover the hotel, but as reason to return to restore the rooms, kitchen, and other parts of the building, and give themselves… Read More »BAUEN, day 45

“I felt like I had a large debt to my family all the need they had experienced, and for all the times I wasn’t able be with them,” continues Plácido, who remembers: When my daughter was fourteen years old, I promised myself that I was going to throw her a fifteenth birthday party. But another child was born, and things had become more difficult in economic terms. The baby was born in January of 2003, and everything was up in… Read More »BAUEN, day 44

The first event: recovered business to recovered business “Meanwhile, we put the rooms in a condition to be able to work. This took us about a year, before we had our first client, the quinceañera [fifteenth birthday party] of compañero Plácido’s daughter (Plácido belongs to the Chilavert cooperative). That was when we started holding events in the rooms. We barely made enough to replenish our supplies and eat,” remembers Gladys of this difficult period. Plácido Peñarrieta, worker and president of… Read More »BAUEN, day 43

From there, with the disputes overcome, the “holding on” was organized better, with tasks distributed according to people’s capacities and availability of time. The first thing that occurred to them was that all the available unused and wasted material could get a little money. They contacted a depository of recyclable materials to see what could be rescued. There was lots of old folders, useless papers, irons that couldn’t be fixed, ruined mattresses, and other leftover furniture. Some people pulled the… Read More »BAUEN, day 42

Chapter 6 Holding on Taking over the hotel was simple compared with the long period of resistance immediately afterwards, which the workers usually call el aguante, “the holding on.” They found themselves inside an immense building, in a state of total abandonment, in no condition to work. The door on Callao Avenue was boarded up, the furniture had disappeared, and every part of the hotel needed to be repaired and cleaned before they could even start to think about recovering… Read More »BAUEN, day 41

One of issues with the trustee was the inventory of goods, because if it was done at the end of the occupation, they could be accused of having taken anything that was missing. Finally, an inventory was done of everything in the hotel at the time of the occupation, and the bankruptcy judge ended up giving the former workers provisional possession of the property. This resolution, despite its finite duration, served to give legal coverage to the first months of… Read More »BAUEN, day 40

In María Eva’s story, we also hear the emotion of that entry, something that hadn’t even been a dream months before. But we also hear the concern for the state the facilities were in. There was electricity, but the neglect was significant. “The only thing that made us happy was that we had lights. Otherwise, was everything a disaster—dirty, abandoned, no furniture, boarded up. We made a hole in the boards to be able go out to Callao street.” Marcelo… Read More »BAUEN, day 39

The takeover The former Bauen employees met on the morning of March 21st at the corner of the hotel. They were not alone. About a hundred people accompanied them, convened by the National Movement of Recovered Businesses. There, they were advised that the purpose of the call was not to be paid money by the trustee, but to occupy the hotel. It was not a surprise or anything unimagineable to those who were not aware of the true plans, since… Read More »BAUEN, day 38