FaSinPat

The increased labour activism led to serious conflict with the factory owner, who started firing workers until he decided for a lockout in 2001 in the hope of hiring a more docile workforce in the future.

They justified this by the large amount of money they were owed in back pay, the fact that the Zanon factory had been built with public funds, as well as worries about asset stripping.

In 2002, the government abandoned the fixed one-to-one peso–dollar parity and decreed the pesificación ("peso-ification"), the conversion of all bank accounts denominated in dollars into pesos at the official rate.

As a result of the changed economic environment, FaSinPat started to be profitable again, and Luigi Zanon attempted to reclaim ownership of the factory.

[4] Hindering FaSinPat's profitability is that the worker-controlled factory pays full price for electricity and gas while the previous owner only paid 20%.

Chief amongst these creditors are the World Bank, from whom Luis Zanon took a substantial loan to start the factory, and Sacmi, an Italian company that produces ceramics machinery.

However, the cooperative has resisted these moves, arguing that these creditors participated in a fraudulent bankruptcy in 2001, and that Zanon himself should be liable for these debts, because the credits went to him personally, and not the plant.

[7] The FaSinPat workers' contributions to the development of rank and file unionism (sindicalismo de base) played a major role in their capability to organize among themselves and maintain control of the factory.