The beginning and end of our section in Buenos Aires was bookended by a stay at the downtown Hotel Bauen. Upon arriving, the hotel seemed like any other hotel in the city. It had a grand lobby, a cafeteria, and wifi. Our country coordinator, however, was sure to put in the plug that the hotel was not just any ordinary hotel, but that it was in fact, a cooperative business. This means that the Bauen is owned and operated democratically. Every month, the workers meet and make decisions based on their collective opinion of the best plan of action for the hotel. This means that they collective agency over their own working conditions, salaries, and benefits as well. Further, their profit does not feed in to one person's paycheck, but is either divided evenly or invested back into the hotel.
The Bauen used to operate as a for-profit hotel, under a standard business model. After the financial crisis of 2001, the hotel went under, leaving its employees out of work in a very rough economic climate rife with high unemployment and massive inflation. The workers at this moment decided that they would claim the property as their own and operate it through democratic means. It has been operating ever since as a cooperative business. The Bauen remains unstable because its land ownership continues to be disputed in the national court. Though they manage to pay the bills, they are always threatened with eviction. For instance, we made reservations one month in advance, with the caveat that the hotel might be shut down by the time we arrived.
The Hotel Bauen is not the only cooperatvie business operating in and around Buenos Aires; the city is full of them. Many sprang up during the past financial crisis and have kept hold because the economy has not been looking up in any spectacular way. Cooperatives have proven in some ways more stable here, as they allow their workers to trust each other and mandates that the businesses give back to their employees. Despite their strength and high level of participation, cooperatives have a lot of work to do in the legal sphere. The government has passed some laws to protect them and the properties that many of them have seized, but much work is still needed to ensure that many of these businesses stay open.