From: obrerist@ptdprolog.net
Date: Wed Oct 16 2002 - 12:31:19 EDT
Cooperatives. Democratically worker-run, splitting profits up among the
workforce or reinvesting them as decided democratically by the workforce.
In Madison, there's a cab company called Union Cab. It was once a privately
owned cab company, the workers unionized. The company went bankrupt, so the
cabbies bought it. Now it's cooperatively run, with a management elected by
the workers. In countries like Sweden, unions have run cooperatives for over
a century and in many cases, they outcompeted for-profit companies. Unions
here haven't gotten involved in many cooperatives though, except for the
United Electrical Workers, a very democratic, radical union. There's also
something very interesting called the Mondragon project in Spain. It's a
huge cooperative company in the Basque country. It has a bank, it has a
school, it has factories that produce all kinds of products, and it's totally
worker-owned and worker-run. Recently, because of vicious international
competition, it opened up factories in Morocco which are just traditional
factories, heirachically-run. But this thing succeeded for something like 30
years. We can build post-capitalist projects in the midst of capitalism, it
just takes some vision and alot of democracy.
Charlie Hoyt
UW-Madison
> meghan lee krausch <mlkrausc@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:Hey folks,
>
> does anyone have any advice, suggested reading, criticisms, thoughts, on
> creating a more than vague notion of "fostering democracy in the
> workplace"? for example, if one were to actually start a factory with all
> the proper material ingredients for non-sweatshop-like conditions, how
> would one then go about making it a truly empowering place for
> workers? you can't create a union yourself (i don't think that's agood way
> anyway--i could be wrong), but you can't just arrange everything in a
> hierarchical way and say that you are ensuring the workers' well-being. do
> people think that transitioning to a worker-owned corporation (and
> worker-run--completely) might solve the problem?
>
> just to clarify, this is a non-profit factory that aims to sell shirts,
> employ workers, and donate profits.
>
> opinions, thoughts, anything please!
>
> -meghan
>
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Cooperatives. Democratically worker-run, splitting profits up among the
workforce or reinvesting them as decided democratically by the workforce.
In Madison, there's a cab company called Union Cab. It was once a privately
owned cab company, the workers unionized. The company went bankrupt, so the
cabbies bought it. Now it's cooperatively run, with a management elected by
the workers. In countries like Sweden, unions have run cooperatives for over
a century and in many cases, they outcompeted for-profit companies. Unions
here haven't gotten involved in many cooperatives though, except for the
United Electrical Workers, a very democratic, radical union. There's also
something very interesting called the Mondragon project in Spain. It's a
huge cooperative company in the Basque country. It has a bank, it has a
school, it has factories that produce all kinds of products, and it's totally
worker-owned and worker-run. Recently, because of vicious international
competition, it opened up factories in Morocco which are just traditional
factories, heirachically-run. But this thing succeeded for something like 30
years. We can build post-capitalist projects in the midst of capitalism, it
just takes some vision and alot of democracy.
Charlie Hoyt
UW-Madison
> meghan lee krausch <mlkrausc@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:Hey folks,
>
> does anyone have any advice, suggested reading, criticisms, thoughts, on
> creating a more than vague notion of "fostering democracy in the
> workplace"? for example, if one were to actually start a factory with all
> the proper material ingredients for non-sweatshop-like conditions, how
> would one then go about making it a truly empowering place for
> workers? you can't create a union yourself (i don't think that's agood way
> anyway--i could be wrong), but you can't just arrange everything in a
> hierarchical way and say that you are ensuring the workers' well-being. do
> people think that transitioning to a worker-owned corporation (and
> worker-run--completely) might solve the problem?
>
> just to clarify, this is a non-profit factory that aims to sell shirts,
> employ workers, and donate profits.
>
> opinions, thoughts, anything please!
>
> -meghan
>
>
>
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon Oct 28 2002 - 02:52:34 EST