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Irena PETROVIC, The University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, Serbia, Alberto Leonard BIALAKOWSKY, Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina and Maria IGNACIA COSTA, Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Buenos Aires., Argentina
Abstract:

Throughout history, on the level of particular historical societies, workers’ self-management has emerged in specific phenomenal forms. One ideological and organizational experiment of exceptional originality has definitely been the system of workers’ self-management in Yugoslavia. It represented, at least on the plane of imagination, an unprecedented democratic as well as civilizational progress in general in the process of achieving a strong influence of employees on all aspects of their working life
On the other hand, deepening of the economic crisis in Argentina in the late 1990s and early 2000 was followed by the emergence of enterprises that had been occupied (recovered) by their employees (Spanish - Empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores – ERT). Recovered enterprises in Argentina have been operating in the form of worker cooperatives and represent a new model of collective action of a part of the working class, in response to the crisis of primitive accumulation of capital. In addition, the emergence of such enterprises in Argentina has reiterated the historical and cognitive importance of studying workers’ self-management.
Basic difference between the models of workers’ self-management in these two societies, apart from a different temporal and contextual framework in which they emerged, is that the model of workers’ self-management in Yugoslavia has been introduced ‟top-down” by the ruling stratum, while Argentina’s model born ‟bottom-up”. In addition, the difference between the two models is also reflected in the fact that this system failed to survive in Yugoslavia, despite a highly developed institutional structure. In Argentina the phenomenon keeps going on despite the economic growth and the increasing of employment.
With this in mind, we are trying to determine here major factors in the failure of the model of workers’ self-management in Yugoslavia, as well as the possibility that such a model would work out in Argentina.