Since October passed, the employees of the Barcelona publishing house Lack of control apply 28 hour work week. So they are going to agree after a long debate that it is going to precipitate some things, when they are opening a small subsidy from the Ministry of Industry to apply this measure.
In concentrating the feina in set hours during four days a weekconsider that they have a Better rest and be able to manage more of your daily needs.sense that it has had an impact on the company’s performance. On the contrary: in order to reduce production, they have established a rotary system Because the rotary machines, and the attention to the public, are the five days of the week.
Five years of critical thought
Uncontrolled Editorial and Printing SCCL will reach its peak in 2019, the result of the confluence of people from the editorial world, design and digital printing. This team will begin to forge relationships with different books, distributors and other sectors of independent culture. Don’t leave Catalonia alone; his catalog of assessment and fiction has reached hundreds of sales points from the Spanish State.
“In self-definition as an umbrella for those authors who do not have a presence in the great marketers of thought and culture,” the cooperative explains, convinced that the project has opened a strategy to promote the “socialization of autonomous, anarchist and revolutionary ideas and practicestot aprofundint en l’origin i desenvolupament de les lluites contemporànies”.
At Descontrol they make decisions in an assembly manner, prepare the books with materials relevant to the environment
Malgrating the difficulty of survival in the current literary market, the members of Descontrol But they have not volgut lost the cooperative principles that emanate from the social and solidarity economy. Prepare decisions in an assembly manner, prepare books with materials relevant to the environment, look for similar initiatives to intercooperate, while having at the center the needs of those who participate in the production chain.
In accordance with this proposal, the company located at building 85 of block 11 of Can Batlló, the ancient industrial site of Sants converted into a cooperative branch, has decided to compact the activity to reduce the work load of its employees .
A paradigm shift
The reduction of feina has not followed a significant decision. “Dins of the internal debates that we have about working conditions, I always talk about reducing the working daybecause we are people who volem fer other activities”, indicates one of the seus responsible.
Tot i això, the call that the Ministry of Industry will issue two years to subsidize the companies that aspire to will be decisive. “It was online with the imagination of the project, moreover it incorporated a contract, which is also interesting to compensate for the reduction in working hours,” he said.
The subsidy from the Ministeri, however, will take longer than expected, as Uncontrol has invested part of its resources in renewing the machinery, so that the 25,000 euros that will finally end up in October have been spent because The bet has become more ambitious than expected.
Thanks to a subsidy, the reduction in working hours has gone beyond what was initially proposed.
“If you do not pass the size I, therefore, do not miss the pilot, we will also apply the discount. But, both of these diners, we have reduced the day to face more, since of the 32 hours that we have proposed , we have agreed on fer-ne 28, the equivalent of set hours diàries durant four dies”, comment.
A drastic decrease in which new employees are very satisfied, because, through a compensatory relleus systemdoes not force the company to limit the cap day. “One week and he touches dilluns, another one dimarts and així for all and each one of us. We are going to agree-ho fer-ho in this way to avoid that someone always touches dilluns or divendres”, they explain, which thing els allows to extend the productivity of the machines, which do not stop operating the zinc days of the week.
Cap a l’efficiència i el decreixement
Descontrol, which has passed from five to new workers, this work scheme is associated with a different way of conceiving production and other areas linked to publishing activities. Així, for example, for the presence at fires or literary days, they have decided to select more who will be present, and in case of not being able to attend, look for local col·lectius willing to exhibit their books. “Al capdavall, it is tracta de fer menys but fer-ho més bé,” comments one of the employees.
Supporters of the decreixement, the members of Descontrol have reduced the volume of edited books
Also, when it comes to the production of books, they will agree at the time of editing a name lower than that of the three who will constitute the company, to the extreme that they have passed on the 25 titles in 2021, to a half of 12 to 15. “Surely we could edit more, but we won’t want to follow the “dynamics of the capitalist market, based on a system of development that consists of raising money with the hope that one and the rest will recover.” In the face of this logic, the idea goes in the opposite direction: “We do not want to waste resources, but rather take care of each work and that all have a meaning.”
Aclaparats by the expectation that has generated the seva darrera moderation, Uncontrol begins a new stage in which the objective is to demonstrate, how the balance from here to a parell d’anys, that the reduction of the working week has remained beneficial in all senses. And even more so in the second case, which, unlike other companies, share the advantage of having its own printing press. “We know that it is easier to invest in machinery than to hire personnel or other aspects, which in turn makes it easier to have a higher level of efficiency,” they comment.
The time will say, but, if this bet that the social movements come vindicating as a prop of the decreixentist logic, it is optimal and satisfactory. At the moment, everything indicates that the publishing house Santsenca has no control; not only for the purposes that it remained sustainable in the weather; also because it continues to inspire many other cooperatives or companies that support working less for working better.
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