Nor do they seem to know that was the reform of the bankruptcy law in 2011 that benefits business recovery by the workers. With all its deficiencies (among them, that it leaves a lot of discretion to judges to decide whether to use the mechanism or not, and that it extends the time long beyond the ability to wait of workers who just lost their source of income), La Nación decides to ignore its existence. In the simplified heads of… Read More »BAUEN, day 99
The indignation of La Nación against “illegal occupations” has a direct target: the workers of the BAUEN cooperative. They present the deceased owner Marcelo Iurcovich and his son Hugo, without naming them, as poor victims of the new barbarians, the workers that occupy businesses (they prefer to call them employees, to highlight their subordination an employment contract, which, in reality, the employers violated). They overlook the fact that they built the hotel with an unpaid loan from the BANADE thanks… Read More »BAUEN, day 98
La Nación gets upset by the lack of respect for private property that “illegal occupations” represent, when private property is violated to defend other constitutional rights, like the right to work, housing, education, and a dignified life. They never get upset, in contrast, when public property is attacked. They are not indignant about the growth of the national debt, by the destruction of jobs, or by the closure of thousands of factories, nor were they outraged when Martínez de Hoz… Read More »BAUEN, day 97
A provisional epilogue And in case it was not entirely clear who is who in this story, La Nación put it in black and white. Judge Hualde sent another eviction notice in March, with a deadline of April 14. Since that was Good Friday, which everyone had off, she later sent a correction, and the date was moved to April 19. Macri had already vetoed the expropriation after Christmas. With the letters sent and the cooperative ready to fight for… Read More »BAUEN, day 96
In the rest of the article, what has been expropriated is ceded in the form of a loan to the cooperative Buenos Aires Una Empresa Nacional “for the achievement of its social objective, with the condition of continuing the cultural, educational, and social activities that it carries out.” The cooperative must also “destine and create spaces of cultural advancement” and for the “development of labor educational practices that allow learning about trades related to hospitality.” The imprint of Larroque’s bill… Read More »BAUEN, day 95
The text The unified bill incorporated elements of the prior versions, combining them into a single text. Outside the rigorous formalities, the substantive points of the bill which, the following year, the Senate would turn into Law 27344 and which president Macri would veto shortly thereafter, are the following: Art. 1) The properties and all the facilities that make up the building of the Hotel Bauen are declared to be of public utility and subject to expropriation (…). Art. 2)… Read More »BAUEN, day 94
The text The unified bill incorporated elements of the prior versions, combining them into a single text. Outside the rigorous formalities, the substantive points of the bill which, the following year, the Senate would turn into Law 27344 and which president Macri would veto shortly thereafter, are the following: Art. 1) The properties and all the facilities that make up the building of the Hotel Bauen are declared to be of public utility and subject to expropriation (…). Art. 2)… Read More »BAUEN, day 94
Of course, Clarín did not deny itself a new attack on the workers. “Bill advances to expropriate the BAUEN, despite claims,” read the headline November 26th, 2015,1 the day the session was held. For La Nación, it was a “scandalous” session, in which a wide-ranging bundle of laws was voted on. Of all those laws, the most bothersome to La Nación, Clarín and the PRO – which they expressed by quoting then Deputy Federico Pinedo – was that of the… Read More »BAUEN, day 93
Expropriation against the clock It is an enduring paradox that a project driven by, worked on, and wished for by the workers for almost ten years would be approved in a race against time. The result the Presidential elections in 2015 was the starting gun for this last opportunity to try to approve expropriation before the rise of a political movement that was openly hostile, that had already ended expropriation in the Legislature of the City of Buenos Aires, and… Read More »BAUEN, day 92
In spite of being a bill that distanced itself from the self-management that characterized the recovery of the BAUEN from the beginning, the cooperative did not have many other choices and decided to accept the idea. It remained to be seen what would become of the role of the cooperative organization, which workers were not ready to abandon, even if the legal and ownership status changed, and they become State workers with stable jobs, a contract, and guaranteed salaries. Larroque’s… Read More »BAUEN, day 91