Fábrica Simões: self-government or power delegation? - a case study on an enterprise under state intervention

Abstract

The present article studies an enterprise belonging to the textile branch, placed in Lisbon's industrial belt. It is an attempt to make an incursion in the field of sociological studies. The basic issue formulated in the title - self-government or power delegation? - points to the analysis of the relationship between workers, their representatives and the employers, in order to find out if at Fábrica Simões (an enterprise where a prolonged strike took place in May 1974, followed by the state intervention a few months later) one created structures for the division of «powers» inside the workers' collective (what would be characteristic of workers' control) or if,on the contrary, the decision-making was concentrated in the hands of a restricted group (inside which the «bases» delegated «powers»). On the other side, one inquires if the worker's opposition actions as to the employers were of a mainy institutional type (v.g., negotiation), or, on the contrary, clearly hostile (direct anti-employer actions). The article begins with the techno-economic characterization of the enterprise and its insertion in the corresponding branch of activity; it proceeds studing the social conflicts in the enterprise and analysing some fundamental questions such as the change in «power relations» and the making of new management practices; and it ends with a summing-up of what has remained and of what has changed.