Long Live the Women’s Committee
A dispatch from an embattled worker-run factory in Buenos Aires, where a militant women’s committee has linked the fight in the factory to the broader feminist struggle beyond its doors.
Madygraf workers.
MadyGraf is an occupied and self-managed printing factory in Buenos Aires. The factory was formerly the property of RR Donnelley, a US corporation with headquarters in Chicago. Workers and their families occupied the factory in 2014, when — after announcing the dismissal of 123 workers of a workforce of 400 — the management decided to shut down in response to the workers’ resistance.
Following the occupation, ex-Donnelley workers formed a cooperative (MadyGraf), which is currently affiliated with the printing workers union (Federación Gráfica Bonaerense, FGB). Today the factory is facing an uncertain future, due to the austerity policies implemented by Macri’s government, which have thrown the economy into recession, and to the skyrocketing inflation, which is making energy and raw material costs prohibitive for the cooperative.
A Pillar of the Struggle
One of the pillars of the occupation is the MadyGraf women’s committee, which was originally formed in 2011, when the management threatened to dismiss around twenty workers. At the time the entire factory workforce was male, and the women’s committee was formed by the workers’ partners, wives, and sisters, who came together in order to support them in their struggle against the management.
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