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Originally, the BAUEN Hotel was built under the military dictatorship (1976-1983), as part of the 1978 World Cup enterprise (a World Cup which was met by a wide boycott movement), by a private investor who had received a public loan. Later, it was frequented by the Argentine elite and foreign tourists. In the face of growing competition from new luxury hotels, however, Hotel BAUEN closed its doors in December 2001.
Since March 2003, employees have taken charge of the management of the hotel, sharing tasks and salaries, and taking decisions at general meetings. They created the BAUEN Workers' Cooperative, a self-managed structure initially linked to the National Movement of Recovered Enterprises (MNER), and since 2007, with the Argentine Federation of Self- Employed Labor Cooperatives ( FACTA). In 2004, the reopening continued and the Utopia Cafeteria was rebuilt. It had links with Zanon, the ceramic factory -whose former boss was expropriated, and which was one of the 300 companies taken over by employees in Argentina.
In the face of this practical demonstration of the self-managing capacities of the 130 employees, the Argentine power led a state offensive against the Cooperative. In December 2005, the Buenos Aires parliament voted to give the hotel back to the former owner's family. But for 14 years the workers' and popular resistance constituted a bulwark around this self-managed venture and their fight was consecrated on 30 November 2016, when the Argentine Senate promulgated the expropriation law of Hotel BAUEN in favor of the Workers’ Cooperative, a law that also recognizes the site’s social and cultural activities. This decision is in fact a condemnation of the conditions of construction of the building: a public loan granted by the military junta and never repaid.

Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s Veto
This law favorable to the employees has been called into question by the Argentine President, acting on behalf of the interests of the former owner’s family and thereby condones the activities and the corruption at play under the dictatorship.
In the context of the struggle of the Hotel BAUEN Self-Managed Cooperative, we at CNT-F:
• Affirm our militant trade union solidarity with the battle of the 130 employees for the conservation of the management of the site.
• Support the application of the expropriation law voted on 30/11/2016, which recognizes the self-management of the hotel and its social, cultural and solidarity goals.
• Denounce President Mauricio Macri’s veto, an act synonymous with the laying off of 130 people, and expressive of a memorial collusion with the practices of the bloody and corrupt military dictatorship.
• Call on people to sign the international petition in support of the BAUEN Self- Employed Workers' Cooperative.
https://www.change.org/p/senadoargentina-por-la-aprobaci%C3%B3n-de-la-ley-del- hotel-bauen-media-sanci%C3%B3n-victoria-completa
Paris, February 17, 2017. Americas Work-Group International Secretariat of CNT-F