RECOVERED COMPANIES AS A GRASSROOTS SOLUTION TO UN(DER)EMPLOYMENT AND LACK OF DECENT WORK: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF VIO.ME AND KAZOVA EXPRIENCES

The Covid-19 pandemic amplified the two epiphenomena of the neoliberal policies: un(der)employment and lack of decent work.Possible solutions to un(der)employment and lack of decent work in contemporary capitalism are mostly discussed at macro-level intersecting analysis of state, market, and society. Self-managed recovered factories, however, have attempted to solve these problems at an alternative scale in which workers take action without waiting for macro-level arrangements or a revolution to fall into place. Despite the significant attention on the phenomenon during recent decades, the literature still lacks the comparative perspective to distinguish the dynamics of long-run sustainability which is a sine qua non if self- managed recovered factories would provide reliable alternatives.
I plan to carry out a comparative study in two distant yet proximate contexts across the EU border: Vio.Me-an ongoing experience in Thessaloniki, Greece-and Kazova-a fading experience in Istanbul, Turkey. I will aim to reach a contrastive explanation by particularly focusing on the effects of i) the organizational reconfiguration of management within the factory; ii) the production process and distribution networks which bind the autonomous sight of production with solidarity economies; iii) the transformation and reproduction of work-space and subjectivity of workers; and iv) the gendered "invisible" labor supporting the workers.