Argentina: Solidarity with Bauen hotel workers

The movements of worker-run businesses in Latin America are growing, creating dignified democratic jobs in the rubble of neoliberalism's ruinous experiments on that continent. We are writing you today to ask you to help save one of the most important sites in this emerging network: the Bauen Hotel in Buenos Aires.

The Bauen is a four star hotel that was abandoned to bankruptcy by its owners, and has been recovered and is now operated by a cooperative of its workers. It is also the informal living room/meeting place of the movement in Argentina, and as such has been targeted by right wing politicians in the city legislature of Buenos Aires for eviction. The hotel is now on emergency footing, with eviction possible within days. At 2 a.m. on Wednesday December 6, the Buenos Aires city Legislature passed a law that will in effect evict the workers' cooperative at the Hotel Bauen.

They started to work with nothing but the strength of their conviction. Now there are 140 men and women who work to keep the hotel running, 24 hours a day, also providing spaces for meetings, assemblies and social movement events entirely out of solidarity. Now, the workers demand that the vice-mayor of Buenos Aires, Jorge Telerman, veto the law. Argentina's government needs to know that the world is watching!