Entrance to the new warehouse (green shirts are associates of ASMAC)
Materials will be unloaded in the 'silos' (up close, on the left), sorted, stored in holding bays (middle) and then loaded onto the trucks at the loading dock (on the right, the two open doors)
View from the loading dock, silos and sorting benches in the background, with press and lift equipment up front
Isabel, ASMAC president, celebrates the inauguration and signing of the contract for use of the new warehouse with the mayor (in purple) and three of her advisers.
So far we have focused our research on the current sorting warehouse in the Kennedy neighborhood, which is scheduled to be closed down and its members transferred to the new building. ASMAC is a unique case among associations because it has three separate warehouses that operate in large part as three separate units. The two other warehouses, in the CEASA business district and the Novo Riacho neighborhood, have the profile of street catadores who work autonomously, collecting and sorting materials with their carts and being reimbursed individually by the association, which basically functions as a unit of joint commercialization. This sort of cooperative is more similar to cooperatives in the U.S., which help to coordinate sales among individual producers such as farmers or taxi drivers, thus creating an umbrella organization and social support service that gives the appearance of being a single business.
The Kennedy group, on the other hand, has a profile more similar to other associations I have seen here. A team of workers based in a sorting warehouse receives material collected from trucks and establishes procedures to work together to sort, press, stock, and sell these recyclables. This sort of cooperative is entirely different; instead of merely serving as an umbrella organization to coordinate sales, it actually requires a cooperative effort in the entire production process and thus must promote the idea of the collective rather than the autonomy of individual catadores. The fact that these two very different forms of cooperative organization exist within one association complicates matters significantly. Another complicating factor is the fact that the association’s activities are coordinated almost entirely by a group of three technicians from a local Catholic charity, which gives it a significant administrative advantage in comparison to more catador-run cooperatives but also races complicated questions of hierarchy, ownership and participation.
For our coursework in Dr. Lima’s Qualitative Methodology of Work Analysis class, we are writing monthly reports on the situation in ASMAC. We submitted our last write-up last week, where we focused on five key points of analysis (that of course have a strong amount of overlap). Here, I will outline each of these areas:
1. Conflicts among personnel
The Kennedy group has developed a certain reputation for generating conflicts among associates. There is a close-knit family (a mother and several children) with a history of aggression and criminal problems as well as drug abuse who tend to intimidate the other catadores. One of these individuals admitted that “no one can stand us” and the accompanying INSEA technician told me that they have nicknamed the warehouse “the den of cobras” and that meetings often degenerate into shouting matches. This has led to high turnover within the group and a steadily diminishing number of associates, leaving only the problematic nucleus within the space. There is also a history of tension between the Kennedy members and the president of the association. These personal conflicts pose a significant challenge to the development of positive, productive collaboration.
2. Sorting techniques and economic incentives
In order to streamline ASMAC’s activities, the Kennedy warehouse was established with a remuneration scheme equivalent to the CEASA and Novo Riacho warehouses, where catadores are reimbursed individually based on the amount of sorted materials they turn in to the association and other associates (“day-workers”) are paid fixed daily wages by the association to handle pressing, stocking, transportation and administration. While this scheme makes sense for autonomous collectors, it has created serious problems within the Kennedy warehouse. Sorters are paid based on the weight of sorted material, without rigorous oversight of the quality of sorting. As a result, they do not have an economic incentive to sort carefully, since they will be reimbursed equally regardless of the outcome of the sale of materials. Sorting can therefore be haphazard at times, and the day-worker that operates the press constantly complains about materials being mixed together (paper with plastic, for example).
The other issue is the disconnect between the association’s revenues and the wages it pays to the catadores. Although reimbursement is linked to the fluctuating price of materials (with an overhead 5 cent per kilogram charge to cover administrative costs), the association begins to owe payment to the catadores as soon as the material is weighed, regardless of the outcome during pressing, transport, and sale. If any problem arises in the sales process (delay in payment from the buyer, unable to find a buyer for a certain material, etc), the association winds up having to shoulder the burden completely because it has already guaranteed money to the catador. Because the association tends to be short on operating capital (a subject I will turn to in point 3), it can have trouble in bearing these costs.
The new warehouse will probably employ a different remuneration scheme linked to the collective production of the group (some other enterprises use work hours with quotas or divide payment equally among associates, for example). This will be an important element of the new production process within the warehouse and will be a focus of my research.
3. The collective fund and operating capital
A chronic problem facing associations and cooperatives of catadores is the lack of operating capital. Catadores normally receive very low wages ($2-$10 a day, depending on the organization) and are always looking for ways to increase their earnings. This creates a conflict with the need for the cooperative to build up operating capital to finance investment and other business costs. Historically, every time ASMAC has been able to build up a collective fund (normally from clean materials like unused packaging donated by certain businesses), its associates have voted to split up the money as dividends. This desire is understandable for such a vulnerable group, but it limits the association’s ability to grow and develop.
An additional problem is that when this “clean material” arrives at the Kennedy warehouse to be sorted, individual associates try to take it for themselves and claim that they sorted it themselves, thereby receiving individual payment instead of sending the money to the collective fund. Oversight thus becomes a key issue. In the new warehouse, the president of the association will be in charge of designating what material arrives “clean” and sending it to the collective fund, but she will no doubt be under enormous pressure to say otherwise from certain associates within the space (who, as I have already mentioned, have a history of creating conflicts). Even with a collective remuneration scheme within the new warehouse, there will still be an economic benefit for the sorters there to designate clean material as dirty and thus split the profit amongst themselves, rather than send it to the collective fund to be split with the associates of the other two warehouses.
4. Work plan of the new warehouse
The new warehouse was built by the municipal government, which maintains ownership of the space but will “cede” it to ASMAC to run the sorting process. This is part of a process by which the mayor is implementing a recycling program in the new municipal waste management plan, required by Brazil’s latest Waste Management Law, passed in 2010. One condition of ASMAC’s use of the space is that it must outline a detailed “work plan” of how it will organize production within the warehouse. The government representatives expect a high level of detail, such as plans to establish a cleaning schedule for the bathrooms, kitchen and offices as well as fire safety procedures. They will work together with ASMAC representatives and their administrative technicians to develop this plan, and have asked us to participate. While I do believe it is important to have a plan in place before beginning operations (duh!), it is also important to emphasize that the new process will require a significant amount of experimentation, especially since it will involve integrating many novice catadores who do not have experience with sorting. Striking the balance between a detailed initial plan and experimental learning will be necessary. There are very high expectations from all the actors involved, and this is an incredible opportunity for us to help design a system that could serve as an example for using new sorting warehouses across Brazil.
5. Demand for sorters and integration of novices
As I mentioned earlier, the quantity of catadores working at the Kennedy warehouse has diminished over time, as personnel conflicts and economic factors resulted in many associates leaving. At the same time, the quantity of material arriving at the warehouse has increased drastically as the municipal government implements its new “selective collection” program and encourages more businesses, schools and other partners to donate materials to ASMAC. With the quantity of workers going down and the quantity of material going up, the Kennedy warehouse is becoming crammed with material and there is a clear need for more sorters.
The new warehouse has a capacity for 110 people working in two shifts. Considering that the ASMAC group has shrunk to nine, the novices trained by INSEA, who come mainly from the neighborhood adjacent to the landfill where the new warehouse is situated, will form the majority of the group. Properly integrating the novices will be of paramount importance.
First will be a question of recruitment, making sure there are enough workers to fill the space and process all the materials. The original plan was to add novices in phases, so that the workforce would increase in proportion to the materials, thereby guaranteeing a livable wage for everyone. However, some of the INSEA-trained novices may have been disappointed that they were not selected in the first phase, and it will be important to keep them interested and motivated in joining at a later date.
Second will be a question of training, making sure that the novices learn how to process materials without getting overwhelmed or stressed from the get-go. The CATAFORTE course that INSEA used was designed to organize catadores from the streets and dumps, so its emphasis is on teaching cooperation and teamwork rather than the practical skills of how to properly collect and sort material. It therefore did not provide a complete training for people with no experience in the area. Getting current associates to help out the novices in a way that makes them feel welcome, encouraged, and relaxed will be very important. One suggestion is for sorters to initially work in teams (one veteran with one novice), but this may be difficult due to the imbalance in numbers as well as the indifference some current associates have shown to the process of training the rookies. One sorter, for example, told me that she had no interest in teaching the new associates, and that she was used to the “accelerated work rhythm of [her] team” and did not want to be slowed down by “soft people.”
The INSEA technician is concerned that some novices will be quickly turned off by the work once they see up close how physically demanding and dirty it can be, as well as the difficulties they will face in learning how to resolve personal conflicts without a clear hierarchical structure. I have a sneaking suspicion which I hope will be proved wrong that filling the new warehouse with a sufficiently large workforce may be trickier than everyone seems to expect.
No comments:
Post a Comment