Self-management in companies taken over by workers

Recovered companies gained strength in Brazil during the 1990s, a period of significant increase in informality and unemployment, as a result of the mobilisation of workers who organised collectively in order to preserve their jobs. In this context, the resurgence of self-management was driven, on the one hand, by economic issues linked to the search for emergency solutions to crises and recessions and, on the other, by political reasons relating to the creation of autonomous, democratic and solidarity-based forms of labour. The aim of this book is to discuss the various perspectives that make up the reality of work in rescued companies, with an emphasis on workers' experiences, interactions, beliefs and values about self-management practices. To this end, it engages in a dialogue with the literature of the Sociology of Work in order to take stock of the most relevant studies on companies that have been taken over by workers, and then presents and analyses three case studies from the diesel engine rectification sector carried out in the Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region.