"No families on the street. “The machines are ours!”: Textile factory closed and workers take over", 2 May 2024

Textil.com produces for big brands like Mimo, Grisino, Topper, Penguin . When sales in the textile sector dropped a little, they decided to kick 150 families out onto the street. But the workers prevented the scandalous maneuver and occupied the factory...

“Where is the “labor inclusion”? Where?! The employers fill their pockets with subsidies, the government financed them for two years. Let us defend our work. We take over the factory, yes. The machines do not belong to the employers… they are ours, the machines are ours! This is ours!” The woman who speaks is older than many of her colleagues...She is full of anger but she has everything very clear.

Another of her colleagues explains to one of the local media: “We are 143 people who are going to lose our jobs. And we want a solution, because it cannot happen. Yesterday there was an “unofficial” permit where the owner said that he was not paying us, so he understood that we could not travel and they gave us a permit to stay at home. And it turns out that there was a move: they were preparing everything to take it away. All the machines were ready to be taken away. So we found out and we all came.”...

Jorge Robles, plant manager, spoke with crocodile tears. “People are not well, they are upset by the situation we are living, unfortunately they are in a context in which there is no viable solution so far. But the reality today is that, economically, the situation is not giving way to sustain the company. This would be a definitive closure”...

Another who gave his opinion was the director of Labor Relations of the province, Diego Romero. “I spoke with the manager of the plant and he told me that the decision is indeed to close the factory in the province.”...

The owner of Textil.com is Carlos Villariño. The company produces finished garments and is dedicated to the “sewing service” for major brands. Among its main clients are: Mimo, Grisino, Topper, Penguin, Cristobal Colon, 47 Street, and Sporting, among many.

The company settled in Villa Lugano, just like other textile companies such as RA Intertrading. The explanation is simple: there they can obtain “labor” from immigrant communities who know the trade and live in the slums in the southern area...

Faced with the industrial recession...employers always choose the same path: to unload this crisis on their "slaves." Faced with this, there are different paths. One, resigning to being on the street, with "luck" with a compensation that "is not enough to set up an Uber." The other, to stand up. As the workers of Textil.com did. Occupy the factory so that they do not take the machines, they do not leave them an empty warehouse. Demand jobs. If the employers' decision continues to be the definitive closure, they must demand expropriation without compensation and that the plant operate under the administration of the working class...

[Translation via Google Translate]