Worker self-management (or autogestion) is a form of workplace decision-making in which the employees themselves agree on choices (for issues like customer care, general production methods, scheduling, division of labour etc.) instead of the traditional authoritative supervisor telling workers what to do, how to do it and where to do it. Examples of such self-management include the Spanish Revolution during the Spanish Civil War, Titoist Yugoslavia, the "recovered factories" movement in Argentina (in Spanish, fábrica recuperada), the LIP factory in France in the 1970s, the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation which is the Basque Country's largest corporation, US AK Press, etc.
In Argentina, workers took over control of the firm, commonly after intentional bankruptcy by the management or after a factory occupation to prevent the risk of a lock out. The Spanish verb recuperar means not only "to get back", "to take back" or "to reclaim" but also "to put back into good condition". Although initially referring to industrial facilities, the term may be extensive to businesses other than factories (i.e. Hotel Bauen in Buenos Aires).
English-language coverage of this phenomenon employs several different translations of the original Spanish expression besides recovered factory. Commonly attested ones are recuperated factory, reclaimed factory, and worker-run factory. It is also known as "autogestion," which comes from the French word designing self-management (whether in factories or in popular education systems or anywhere else).
Workers' self-management is often the decision-making model used in co-operative economic arrangements such as worker cooperatives, workers' councils, and in participatory economics, and similar arrangements where the workplace operates without a boss.
Critics argue that consulting all employees for every tiny issue is time consuming, inefficient and thus ineffective. However, as seen in real world examples, only large-scale decisions are made by all employees during a council meeting and small decisions are made by those implementing them while coordinating with the rest and following more general agreements.

Theory
The most complete experience of workers' self-management took place during the Spanish Revolution (1936-1939). In the 1950s, Titoist Yugoslavia claimed during the Cold War to choose a socialist autogestion way, which led to his break with Moscow. The economy of Yugoslavia was organized according to the theories of Tito and - more directly - Edvard Kardelj.
Following May 68 in France, Lip factory, a clockwork factory based in Besançon, was self-managed starting in 1973, after the management's decision to liquidate it. The LIP experience was an emblematic social conflict of post-68 in France. CFDT trade-unionist Charles Piaget led the strike allowing workers to claim the means of production. The Unified Socialist Party (PSU), which included former Radical Pierre Mendès-France, was in favour of autogestion or self-management.
In the 1970s, the Spanish Legitimist Carlist movement split among the supporters of Don Carlos Hugo's new Carlist Party, confederalist and autogestionary, and his brother Sixto Enrique de Borbón' Carlist Traditionalist Communion, extreme-right.

History
In October 2005 the first Encuentro Latinoamericano de Empresas Recuperadas ("Latin American Encounter of Recovered Companies") in Caracas, Venezuela, with representatives of 263 such companies from different countries living similar economical and social situations. The meeting had, as its main outcome, the Compromiso de Caracas (Caracas' Commitment); a vindicating text of the movement.
Throughout the 1990s in Argentina's southern province of Neuquén, drastic economic and political events occurred where the citizens ultimately rose up. Although the first shift occurred in a single factory, bosses were progressively fired throughout the province so that by 2005 the workers of the province controlled most of the factories.
In the wake of the 2001 economic crisis, about 200 Argentine companies were "recovered" by their workers and turned into co-operatives. Prominent examples include the Brukman factory, the Hotel Bauen and FaSinPat (formerly known as Zanon). As of 2005, about 15,000 Argentine workers run recovered factories . Some labor unions, unemployed protestors (known as piqueteros), traditional worker cooperatives and a range of political groups have also provided support for these take-overs. In March 2003, with the help of the MNER, former employees of the luxury Hotel Bauen occupied the building and took control of it.
One of the highest difficulties such a movement faces is its relation towards the classic economic system, as most classically managed firms refused, for various reasons (among which ideological hostility to the very principle of autogestion) to work and deal with recovered factories. Thus, isolated recovered factories find it easier to work together in building an alternative economic system and thus manage to reach a critical size and power which enables it to negotiate with the ordinary capitalistic firms.