(Original article (in spanish) is at
 http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2004/12/241715.php Imprimir
comentarios.)


By Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein

We write to you in order to request your aid to defend a brave fight
in Argentina.

Dear Friends,

We write to you in order to request your aid to defend a brave
fight in Argentina.

The factory of Zanón ceramics, a democratic factory and under control
of their workers, in Patagonia, is facing a serious threat of
evacuation and its workers have asked us to join international
support for its fight.

In order to sign the petition, please click here:
 http://www.PetitionOnline.com/zanon/petition.html

And for more information, please continue reading...

For those of you who you have seen our documentary, the Taking,
Zanón factory and in general the movement of companies under workers
control in Argentina, it will be very familiar for you.

For those that have not seen it, this new movement of about 15.000
workers in almost 200 democratic places of work, are generating
hope and an economic alternative, in the middle of the rubbish of
disastrous experiment with orthodox neoliberalism in Argentina in
the Nineties.

The recovered factories are managed by assembly: a worker-a
vote. In most of them the workers have decided that each one
must receive the same wage. They have proven the one viability
economy that works completely with a system of different values, and
they are growing.

In the past year, Zanón increased its working force from 300 to 450
workers: an increase of 50%. What multinational company can
be conceited of similar dramatic increase of paid jobs
decently in the middle of an economic crisis?

And Zanón has cultivated a deep and reciprocal relation with the
community that surrounds it. For 20 years, the humble district of the Nueva
España, on the other side of the route, where the factory is, has been soliciing
to the provincial government the construction of a health clinic.
Workers of Zanón made a voting at the beginning of this year, and in 3
months totally constructed and opened a communitarian new health center.

But now the provincial government is threatening with sending the
Gendarmerie in order to take away from Zanón the most valuable
machineries. This is an illegal order, since this federal force is thought to protect
the Argentine borders. On the other hand, the federal judge who
understands in the cause of the bankruptcy of the old owner is refused to recognize
cooperative of the workers of Zanón (FaSinPat call -
abbreviation of ' Factories Without Bosses').

The old owner received millions in public subsidies, and still
maintains a gigantic debt and the bankruptcy: since then it has been retired
from its own directory by "accountancy irregularities". The cooperative
of the workers, on the other hand, is a total success: now produces
380,000 square meters of ceramics per month - a production level
greater than when the old owner closed the factory - and the workers
made it without the enormous subsidies (300,000 pesos per month
that he used to receive).

The workers of Zanón said to us that a massive international
petition in support to their fight could be the key difference for several
judicial and government levels.

The succesfull combination of direct action and direct democracy of
Zanón is a unique example that another world is possible, and that it
is growing before our eyes.

We request you, please, to sign the petition:

 http://www.PetitionOnline.com/zanon/petition.html

and to do everything you can in order to encourage others to do it.

Thanks for you time and support,


Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein


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"The future is now. It is experience that develops us.
Everyday we produce the future. The future is the multiplication of
new types of space, where other principles reign, where other emotions
are produced, work is organised in new forms, happiness. We don´t want
a market-led world, with all its miseries and anguish, we are the other
world, we are inventing it here and now, in this space where we meet
and we do things together. These are the feelings behind our practice."
(Planeta X Collective, Rosario, argentina)