WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, UCL AL #352 - Culture, See: Coline Grando, Le Balai Libéré (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 In 1975, the cleaners at the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve

went on strike and fired their boss. With the help of their union, they
created the cooperative Le Balai Libéré and became owners of their
company. ---- After fourteen years of self-management, Le Balai Libéré
lost its contract with the University when it launched a call for
tenders for a public market. Since then, six companies that responded to
these calls for tenders have followed one another. Today, the site
represents 350,000 m2 to clean. There are around fifty workers to carry
out this task.

After La Place de l'homme, her first feature-length documentary,
director Coline Grando is interested in "Le Balai Libéré", in
collaboration with the Maisons Médicales. This cooperative of cleaners
in the particular setting of Louvain-la-Neuve, a Belgian university
town, through its self-management experience was inspired by Lip's
struggle in Besançon.

By taking several paths, the director tries to answer two questions: how
can this story be useful to us today and what view should we take of the
cleaners of this university and their working conditions?

The director ends her meeting with interviews with former Balai Libéré
staff and with the new people in charge of cleaning. She tries to answer
the question of the sustainability of the story of a victorious struggle
and its political and social outcomes.

Throughout the film, Coline Grando shows us the difficulty of the
cleaning sector, the speed required and the isolation linked to
subcontracting.

She perfectly documents the solitude of the workers in this immense
place to be cleaned. To highlight this solitude, she films by opposing a
wide shot frame, very small people.

Around a table, the workers discuss the deterioration of current working
conditions. A worker from the former framework asks the question of
self-management and the possibility of creating a cooperative by
throwing the boss out: "the problem of self-management... I often find
that we have the impression that it is a matter of small arrangements by
the workers. For me, self-management is to take power of the company!"

Rose (UCL Paris-nord-est)

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Voir-Coline-Grando-Le-Balai-Libere
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