Cooperativas de trabalhadores: opção frente à crise do emprego ou aspecto da crescente precariedade do trabalho? [Worker's co-operatives: an alternative to unemployment or a deterioration of working conditions?]

The paper discusses the problem of the workers’ co-operatives, a form of work organization which expanded very quickly in Brazil during the 90’s. Its growth is seen in connection with the contemporary changes in technology and production that resulted in increasing rates of unemployment and in worse conditions of work to a large number of workers affected by different sorts of measures seeking for more flexibility and deregulation. The study underlines an interesting controversy about what these co-operatives mean to the workers: on the one side, there is the view according to which workers’ co-operatives represent real alternative in face of the present adversities; on the other side, there is the position that holds that, in the way they function in many cases, such co-operatives tend to appear as examples of the very deterioration of the conditions of work. Inspired by this debate, and based on interviews, the analysis covers eleven experiences in the cloth production sector of Santa Catarina. Two of those experiences, in the Greater Florianópolis area, are considered in more detail.