This is a CTP of initiative: ICA/CCVQ (Argentina)
In the 1990s, the CCVQ started building the first houses of its Co-housing project. The works were developed through a self-building system whereby the cooperative's own associates worked in the construction of their own homes.
From this experience, the CCVQ also considered offering its associates the possibility of learning a craft and promoting job opportunities in response to the difficult process of social exclusion that suffered Argentina. Under this slogan were organized working groups specialized in a craft that offered their services outside the scope of the Cooperative.
From that moment, these groups develop tasks of masonry, roofing, electrical installations, plumbing, carpentry, etc. The administration of the cooperative counts on a person in charge of receiving the possible work projects, arming the budgets and distributing them between the groups. The remuneration received for the work performed by the group is evenly distributed among its members. There are no hierarchical distinctions in the organization of groups. The groups were incorporating tools of work that were acquired with the perceived money of the realized works and also they received training oriented to improve the quality of the service that they provide.
The self-building housing project developed by the CCVQ is based on the joint work of the members of the cooperative. To do this, all the associates sign a contract that establishes the rights and obligations of each one.
With the self-building system developed by the CCVQ, there was a co-production process in which the associates were transformed into experts in different aspects of building. From this specialization, the associates were organized into work groups that began to provide services outside the cooperative.
The cooperative encouraged these groups with the objective of minimize the hiring of external services. For those activities that are not possible to develop because it requires a specific technical knowledge that does not have any members, they hire people outside the organization, such as accountants, lawyers or a specific technician, because certain legal issues such as deeds of housing, presentation of the balance sheets, the authorization of the works by the public utility company or the municipality, among others, require them. However, the professionalisation of some associates diminished the dependence on external services for the development of its social object.
A clear example was the need for a construction master (Maestro mayor de obra), a role currently played by one of the cooperative's associate. This has to do with the importance they give to the training of people who work in the construction or in the productive projects.
In this way, the CCVQ was transformed into a complex structure that began as a solution to a housing problem, but was progressing in the generation of solutions to problems of employment and technical training.
The organization of the specialized working groups of the CCVQ was developed from the first building projects in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
At the end of the 1980s, Argentina was immersed in a big economic crisis characterized as a serious inflationary process that provoked a social outbreak in the suburban neighborhoods of Buenos Aires with looting of shops and supermarkets. The serious economic and social crisis caused that the radical government of Raúl Alfonsín advanced the delivery of the command to the elect president Menem in July of 1989.
The new government managed to curb inflation through the Convertibility law that fixed the price of the dollar in relation to the Argentine peso. However, this economic policy caused a sustained increase in unemployment in the medium term. In this way, the self-building model and the specialized working groups offered opportunities for employment and income for part of the cooperative's associates.
The application of the self-building system had multiple obstacles, both internal and external, that caused difficulties in business management. One of the external difficulties to which the interviewed leaders gave more emphasis are related to the misunderstanding that some institutions had about the nature of the cooperative enterprise in the development of negotiation links, for example, with the companies that provide public services.
On the other hand, there is some reluctance to technical advice because there are people outside the organization who try to influence it and who try to influence the courses of action and decisions. Associates are very critical of these attitudes, since they understand that it is the neighbors themselves who are aware of the needs of the organization and know the reality in which they live.
Finally, the organization of the specialized groups presented some tensions associated with the decision-making process. This situation was clearly manifested when services were started outside the cooperative since the management of service requests was strictly controlled by the management of the cooperative.
The organization of the specialized groups was a strategy developed by the CCVQ as part of its action plan to achieve its housing building objectives. In this way, this CTP was anticipated and planned by the referents of the CCVQ.
The possibility of offering services with these working groups outside the cooperative was an unwanted positive effect. However, it was organized and managed by the CCVQ administration with an important level of foresight.
The self-building system, based on a contribution of money and in the work of the associates, one of the most interesting social results is the training provided in the construction of their own home. This implies that there is a technical know-how that is generated in the development of the collective building of the houses and that the initial members transmit to those who want to join the cooperative; Another goal that is achieved is to rescue values and knowledge seemingly forgotten, finally, there is a dignification of those who participate directly and in the community of the neighborhood and its environment.
In the dialogue with the workers the importance of the process of self-building in which they participated in the framework of the work of the Cooperative with respect to the possibility of acquiring a trade that until that moment did not possess was recovered. In addition to the above, the Cooperative generated other projects that integrate groups of families and that are oriented to cover their reproduction needs.
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