“THE WORKERS’ ECONOMY: WORK AND SELF-MANAGEMENT IN 
TIMES OF GLOBAL CRISIS Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, University of Buenos Aires August 12-15, 2009 (please note that this has changed)* University of Buenos Aires, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Puan 470, Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Facultad Abierta (Open University) Program of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Buenos Aires, together with a group of academic institutions, social movements, labor organizations, and other workers’ groups from Argentina and beyond, invites you to the Second International Gathering on “The Workers’ Economy” on the theme of “Work and Self-management in Times of Global Crisis.” We welcome all who have thought about the problems, challenges, and possibilities of achieving an alternative economic reality, including academics committed to social transformation and individuals and organizations actually practicing alternative forms of social organization, politics, and self-management.

A continuation of the first international gathering held in the city of Buenos Aires in July 2007 on the topic of “Self-management and the Distribution of Wealth,” (see: http://www.recuperadasdoc.com.ar/encuentro/index.htm), the main objective of this year’s forum is to generate a space of exchange between scholars, activists, and workers concerned with the problems and possibilities of self-management, as well as the renewal of a political, economic and social strategy by workers and social movements during hard economic times. This year we look to broaden the debates of the first gathering in 2007 by specifically considering the situation created by the current capitalist global crisis. In particular, we are most interested in focusing on the responses by workers and their organizations to the crisis, highlighting what can be learned from the experiences and challenges of self-managed work on the path towards the workers’ economy. As well, we would like to consider how these processes are gendered, and what opportunities they may open for women’s leadership roles and gender equality within alternative economies and self-managed workspaces. We are also concerned with critically examining the academic practices of those who are doing research with or on social movements and workers; we want to also use the gathering to reflect on the impact that academics and students can have in supporting alternative, bottom-up struggles for economic autonomy and self-reliance.

Background

The first international gathering on “The Workers’ Economy” in 2007 brought together over 300 participants which included researchers, workers, and social organization protagonists from over fifteen countries from the Americas, Europe and Africa. The 2007 participants almost unanimously felt that the debates and exchanges engaged in then successfully brought together two broad groups: radical academics and workers and their organizations. Most often the interests of these two heterogeneous groups tend to run on separate tracks—the theoretical advancements of academe often do not dialogue with or get nourished by the concrete practices of workers’ organizations and their struggles, and vice versa. Participants in 2007 felt that these two groups were indeed able to fruitfully engage in mutual reflection and discussion on the broad theme of the workers’ economy. Tellingly, most participants at the 2007 forum agreed that a similar gathering should be organized in the near future.

The current global capitalist crisis adds new urgencies to the issues we discussed in 2007. This discussion should not simply be centered on understanding the origins of the crisis or attempting to “correctly” define the hegemonic system that nurtures it. Nor should it only be about assessing this system’s negative impacts on the worlds’ people, or only about discussing the role of work organizations in the context of a new political and economic paradigm. To be sure, these are important topics to think through. However, more than just delineating or defining our current conjuncture or discussing the immediate economic impact of its institutional frameworks, the main purpose of convening this second gathering on the workers’ economy is to collectively and collaboratively think through the potential for the creation of political and economic alternatives to the current system in crisis. Moreover, the 2009 gathering seeks to begin this collective, collaborative thinking from the standpoint of the organizational experiences of workers, both from the perspective of self-management and from myriad daily struggles against forms of exploitation old and new.

Here is where for us 2009’s forum begins to take on new meaning. What conclusions can be drawn from the social, political, and economic practices that have already been developed by self-managed workers for conceiving a workers’ economy as an alternative to the economy of capital? How should union organizations undertake the struggle for the defense of workers’ rights and interests in a global system that has not only radically restructured itself in the past few decades, but that has shown its limits within that very restructuring? Is it possible to propose new strategies and tactics for local and global struggles against capital on the basis of the numerically marginal experiences of self-management and the workers’ economy to date? How would proposals for and struggles toward a new social and economic model incorporate the experiences of the masses of unpaid and precarious workers? How would these proposals include the heterogeneous group of marginalized people that suffer under poor living conditions, a group whose numbers have multiplied exponentially over the last few decades of neoliberalism and crises? What has been the impact of neoliberalism on women’s lives, and how have women, within the context of the workers’ economy, addressed these challenges? How have academics contributed to these processes and what research and pedagogical practices have worked best to build long-lasting relations of mutual support and learning?

Perhaps it begins with transforming this new global economic crisis into an opportunity for thinking through and possibly even advancing the goal of achieving an economic system self-managed by workers and those living on the margins. Perhaps this current crisis is an opportunity do so on the basis of the concrete experiences of the past and present, experiences that have actually materialized into real self-managed organizational and economic options. Indeed, our current conjuncture may be an opportunity to recuperate and reinvent alternative theoretical, conceptual, and political frameworks from which to think about a different economic project.

These are some of the issues we invite you to consider with us at this year’s gathering. We convene this second international gathering of “The Workers’ Economy” in hopes of stimulating much needed debates and discussions by those thinking about and practicing alternatives to exploitative and alienating economic life in these hard times, both within Argentina and throughout the rest of the world. As in 2007, we hope that these debates will be broad, accessible, and inclusive. We therefore welcome to the gathering, in particular, the participation of socially committed intellectuals of all stripes, grassroots social and political organizations, unions and their members, protagonists of worker-recuperated enterprises and those practicing other forms of self-managed production, and members of collectives engaged in social, economic, and political struggle for alternative forms of life.

Conference themes

• The new crisis of global capitalism: Analysis and responses from the point-of-view of the workers’ economy. • Self-management within our current conjuncture: The possibilities and limits of contemporary experiences for generating new logics for managing economic life. • The gender of the economic crisis: Opportunities and threats to women, constructions of gender in social movements, and recovered factories. • The economy from below: The social economy or the socialization of the economy? • Workers’ organizations in light of new changes to the organization of work by capital. • The union model in crisis: Labor struggles from the perspective of new workers’ organizations. • Informal, precarious, and menial work: Social exclusion or the reformulation of work within global capitalism? • The challenges faced by popular governments in the social management of the economy and the state. • A critical assessment of the cooperative movement. • The university, workers, and social movements: Issues concerning the methodologies and practices of co-research and mutual support. Principal organizers

• The Facultad Abierta (Open University) Program, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, University of Buenos Aires Co-organizers

• Federation of Energy Workers of Argentina (FeTERA-CTA) (http://www.feteracta.org.ar/) • Centre for Global Justice, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/) • Argentina Autonomista Project (http://www.autonomista.org) • International Institute for Self-Management, Frankfurt, Germany (http://www.iism.net/) • Centre of Advanced Studies, National University of Córdoba, Argentina • Movement of Territorial Liberation (Movimiento Territorial de Liberación, MTL) • Department of Social Relations, Autonomous University of Mexico-Xochimilco, Mexico Due dates

Please send a 250-word (max) abstract by May 31, 2009.

All completed papers must be received by June 20, 2009. Completed papers sent before this date will be included in the event’s CD.

Spanish papers and correspondence should be sent to: fabierta@filo.uba.ar or centrodoc@gmail.com

English papers and correspondence should be sent to: UBA.selfmanagement@gmail.com

Paper formats

Completed papers should be no longer than 25 pages. Text should be 12 point set to Times New Roman or a similar font. Papers should be double-spaced.

Free admission

The gathering is free for participants and audience members.

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*We would like to inform you that the II International Gathering of the "Workers' Economy: Work and Self-Management in Times of Global Crisis" has had to be moved two weeks back to August 12-15. This is due to the temporary closure of the University of Buenos Aires's Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and the extraordinary precautions being taken by Faculty administration in light of the A H1N1 flu in Argentina. The original dates of the conference (July 29 - August 1) do not guarantee, according to authorities, that the flu's peak period of infection risk (mid- to-late-July) will have been reached. Given the closure of the Faculty until July 18, the original conference dates will also not guarantee us maximum access to facilities for our event, especially considering that classes will be resuming and the Faculty re-opening two weeks behind schedule on the 18th of this month.

We hope that this necessary change of dates for the conference -- a situation that we, the conference organizers, were unable to control -- will not compromise your ability to attend the event. We still look very much forward to having you attend and participate in the panels, roundtables, and debates we have planned.

The new dates should not change at all the overall order and schedule of the paper presentations, panels, speakers, and roundtables as originally planned. Given this, we request that you please confirm your attendance for the new dates of August 12-15 as soon as possible in order to appropriately adjust the new program if we need to and make any other necessary arrangements.

The II International Gathering of the Workers' Economy will begin on Wednesday, August 12 at 5:00 p.m. in the University of Buenos Aires's Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (Puán Campus). On Thursday the 13th and Friday the 14th of August the conference events will begin at 10:00 a.m. and end at 11 p.m. The conference will conclude on Saturday the 15th, with the day beginning at 10 a.m. and ending with the closing plenary session between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m.