Buenos Aires, April 2006

Glass Factory

My friend Brendan works for The Working World, which is a non-profit that arranged micro-loans to employee-owned businesses. He took a group of us to visit a glass factory just outside Buenos Aires. It used to be owned and operated by the Durax corporation. During the economic collapse, the company fired all the employees, closed the factory and abandoned it. Wanting to work, the employees re-entered the factory and, through great effort, repaired some of the machinery and furnaces. They accomplished this by cannabilizing one piece of equipment in favor of another, and calling old employees to help with specific technical issues.

Osvaldo, the general manager, took us around to show us everything. It's the same tour that Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon took when they visited the factory. I hear that Tim thought Osvaldo looked like Charles Chaplin, so for the rest of the tour he kept on calling him "Charlie". The nickname stuck--everyone calls him that now.

Brendan's Torino	Areal view of factory (80's)	Meeting room	Meeting room door	The tour begins	IMG_7503.JPG
Factory interior	IMG_7505.JPG	Company slogan	Furnace closeup	Dials	IMG_7511.JPG
IMG_7512.JPG	IMG_7514.JPG	Old water tower	Workers posing	Hand blowing	IMG_7524.JPG
Old furnace	Painted sign	Osvaldo chatting	Painted Sign	IMG_7531.JPG	IMG_7532.JPG
Painted sign	Painted sign	Osvaldo/Charlie	Packaging plates	Warehouse area	Broken glasses
Goodbye	Pressing glass plates	Plate closeup	Glass cup production	Final firing	Hand-blown glasses
Hand-blown glasses II