Archive for the 'Economic Democracy' Category

Workers Discuss ‘Workers Control’ and the Socialist Path in Venezuela

by Editors @ Thursday, July 15th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Labor Movement, Latin America, Socialism

from Venezuela Analysis

Workers’ Control and the

Contradictions of the Bolivarian Process

Interview with Gustavo Martínez

By Susan Spronk, Jeffery R. Webber

On June 10, 2010 we caught up with Gustavo Martinez, a union leader in the worker-controlled nationalized coffee company, Fama de América, in Caracas, Venezuela. The company has 350 workers at the national level, with two separate plants – one in Caracas and one in Valencia. We sat down with Martínez to discuss the centrality of workers’ control in the ongoing struggle to transition toward socialism and some of the most pressing contradictions of the Bolivarian process in Venezuela today.

To start off, can you tell us your name, how long you’ve worked in this coffee company, your job in the company, and your role in the union?

My name is Gustavo Martínez. I’m a union leader in Fama de América. I’ve worked here for nine years. I started in 2001. As you would expect, when I started there, Fama de América was a private enterprise, characterized by exploitation of the workers and rampant corruption. The owners of the enterprise, as capitalists, were only interested in extracting surplus; they didn’t care about the conditions of the workers. All of these characteristics we already know about capitalism.

There was a union at the time, first established in 1978, that was controlled by the [centre-right] party, Acción Democrática(Democratic Action, AD). Logically, as people on the left we were opposed to the union. I was one of those on the left. My parents are Colombian, and my father was a militant in the Communist Party in that country. He was pushed out of Colombia, displaced economically and politically, and therefore moved the family to Venezuela. He worked for a transnational and faced death threats for his political organizing in the workplace.

So I found myself here in Venezuela, working at the company, and there were others with a revolutionary background working here too.

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Envisioning the Future, Fanning the Flames

by Editors @ Tuesday, July 13th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Marxism, Organizing

15,000 Attend Detroit Social Forum:

High-Energy Gathering Fires Up

A New Generation of Activists in

U.S. Left and Social Movements

By Carl Davidson

Keep On Keepin' On!

When 15,000 vibrant and politically engaged people gather in one spot for five days and organize themselves into more than 1000 workshops, dozens of major plenaries and late night parties across five major cultural hot spots, no one article can claim to give a full account and get away with it.

But an event on that scale livened up Detroit, Michigan during the week of June 22-26 at the US Social Forum, when Cobo Hall and several nearby universities were buzzing with thousands of people trying to shape a new world.

I won’t even try to capture it all. I’ll just affirm the common conviction that it was a major happening on the left and a huge success, an inspiration and an affirmation of hope that progress is being made towards a better future. Then I’ll humbly offer my take on it. We’ll start with some highlights and, for those who aren’t familiar with the Social Forum movement, offer a few explanations.

The Forum started on June 22 with a massive march of thousands through the streets of a devastated and de-industrialized Detroit. “I’ve never seen anything like this, in Detroit or anywhere,” said Forum participant and Detroit resident Charnika Jett. “The sense of joy, support, and determination on the part of the people here, both Detroiters and visitors, is just incredible.”

“What an amazing day!” said Allison Flether Acosta of Jobs with Justice. “We held an orientation session for local coalition folks early in the day, then joined the march with the other members of the Inter-Alliance Dialogue and more than 10,000 people for a lively march through downtown! We ended at Cobo Hall, and then convened for the opening ceremonies.”

New entry of the Trade Unions

One important new addition to the young crowd in the streets was the participation of organized labor. According to the AFL-CIO News Blog, “Newly elected UAW President Bob King joined Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO President Saundra Williams; Al Garrett, president of AFSCME District Council 25; and Armando Robles, UE Local 1110 president, in leading a march and rally through the streets of Detroit. Chanting ‘Full and Fair Employment Now!’ and ‘Money for Jobs, Not for Banks!’ Participants demanded Congress address the pressing jobs emergency.”

The opening events, unfortunately, were either ignored or strangely spun by the mass media. “This ain’t no Tea Party,’ said Noel Finley, in a scarce account in the Detroit News, somewhat awed by the sight of it all. “The forum is a hootenanny of pinkos, environuts, peaceniks, Luddites, old hippies, Robin Hoods and urban hunters and gatherers.” Indeed it was, with even more variety. And the diverse crowds and meetings grew stronger as the week unfolded. To make sense of it all, some history and background is in order:

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Randy Shannon: The Case for Full Employment

by Editors @ Wednesday, June 9th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Economy, Labor Movement

It’s Time to Fight

for Full Employment!

The Progressive Path

Out of Our Crisis

A Project of the Labor Committee of CCDS

The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

www.cc-ds.org

 

The Struggle for Full Employment:

A Strategy to Defeat the Neoliberal Assault

on the US Working Class

by Randy Shannon

Treasurer, PA 4th CD Chapter,

Progressive Democrats of America

----------------------------------------------------------------

“In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;”

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt: State of the Union Address, January 11, 1944

------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.”

- United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948

I. Introduction

The “Great Recession” that began in 2007 has caused the greatest percent of job losses since the Great Depression of 1929. This crisis is the end of an era of unrestrained ‘neo-liberal’ capitalism that became public policy during the Reagan administration. The crisis marks a new level of instability with the growth of a global financial elite that targeted US workers and our trade unions after World War II.

The election of President Obama reflected the growing struggle of America’s progressive majority to reverse the neo-liberal policy of war and austerity that has undermined the social advances established by the New Deal and the United Nations. It also begins a long period of readjustment for capitalism as it responds to multiple crises, struggles to maintain its system of social control, and seeks a new system of profit accumulation.

Serial Crises

During the seven decades since World War II, US workers have faced ten periods during which the economy lost jobs for over twelve months. Each successive recession in employment lasted longer than the previous downturn.

In the above chart, each line represents an employment crisis since World War II. The vertical axis shows the percent of jobs lost each month and the horizontal axis shows the duration of the crisis in months since the last peak in employment. The right end of each line is the point at which employment returned to its former high.

In the crisis of 1990 the economy lost jobs for two and one half years. Then in the 2001 recession, it was four years before job losses ended. Although these last two downturns were prolonged, and the recoveries were weak, job losses at around 2% were not enough to cause widespread protest.

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Security Clubs: Solidarity Economy for the Unemployed and Underemployed

by Editors @ Tuesday, May 25th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Organizing

Common Security Clubs

Offer the Jobless a Lifeline

By Arlie Hochschild
Los Angeles Times
May 25, 2010

The jobless in the United States lose far more than their paychecks; they also lose precious social support. Research has found that the health of those who lose jobs is likely to decline and the risk of dying rises. Many not only lose daily contact with factory and office friends, they also retreat from other social interaction. Compared with the employed, the jobless are less likely to vote, volunteer, see friends and talk to family. Even on weekends, the jobless spend more time alone than those with jobs.


That's not good. Because as activist and author Chuck Collins has discovered, misery really does love company, especially when social interactions are aimed at helping end the misery. Since January 2009, Collins, an energetic, dark-haired 50-year-old, and his assistant, Andree Zaleska, have launched 115 Common Security Clubs in nine states. The clubs are citizen action groups designed to bring the unemployed - and the anxiously employed - together to help each other. Each club consists of 15 to 20 members, drawn from churches, union halls, environmental groups or neighborhoods. They meet in homes and church basements, and in Marion County, Ore., a group meets in an old Grange Hall.


I heard about Collins' efforts from a friend, and recently interviewed him and eight members of a Common Security Club for a book I am finishing. As we sat at a table in his chilly office in the worn-out, working-class Boston suburb of Jamaica Plain, Collins laid out the concept. "The recession hits us one by one, but we're all in this together," he said. "We start there."

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Making Green Jobs Good Jobs

by Editors @ Saturday, April 17th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Green Industry

 

Evergreen Cooperatives

Forge an Innovative Path

To High-Quality Green Jobs

by Andrea Buffa

How can we make sure green jobs are good jobs? One approach to this much discussed question is to make green jobs union jobs, which typically offer higher wages [The idea for the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative came out of a partnership between the Cleveland Foundation and several local hospitals and universities that are situated in the Greater University Circle area of Cleveland, a one-square mile area surrounded by neighborhoods where the unemployment rate is 20-25 percent and 30 percent of the residents are living in poverty. (Photo credit: Janet Century)]and better benefits than non-union jobs. Another is to require that contractors who receive public funding for green projects pay their workers family supporting wages and provide health insurance. In Cleveland, Ohio, a new and different path is being forged toward high-quality, green jobs-through worker-owned cooperatives, where the workers are not only being paid well, but also can accumulate wealth for themselves and their communities as partial owners of profitable green businesses.

The idea for the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative came out of a partnership between the Cleveland Foundation and several local hospitals and universities that are situated in the Greater University Circle area of Cleveland, a one-square mile area surrounded by neighborhoods where the unemployment rate is 20-25 percent and 30 percent of the residents are living in poverty. (Photo credit: Janet Century)

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Solidarity Economy Experiment in Chicago’s 49th Ward

by Editors @ Monday, April 12th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Organizing

49th Ward Alderman, Joe Moore

Chicago Breakthrough:

The Results of the 49th Ward

Participatory Budgeting Election

 

Dear Neighbor,

The ballots are cast, the votes are in, and the people have spoken.  Attached below are the results of the first ever Participatory Budgeting Election in the U.S.

icon Election Results 2010.pdf (146 KB)

Over 1,600 residents of our community voted in this historic election to determine how I will spend my 2010 capital improvement budget.  The winning proposals run the gamut from the traditional--repairing sidewalks and resurfacing streets--to the less conventional, such as community gardens and murals, which give the 49th Ward its special flavor. 

When I launched the 49th Ward Participatory Budgeting process one year ago, I had high expectations for our very special neighborhood.  The 49th Ward has a proud history of civic engagement, and I knew my constituents would embrace this process. 

But Saturday's election exceeded even my wildest dreams.  It was more than an election.  It was a community celebration and an affirmation that people will participate in the civic affairs of their community if given real power to make real decisions.

This was a people-powered process from beginning to end.  From the initial planning stages to its final implementation, the process was driven by scores of community volunteers.  I extend my deepest gratitude to the members of the 49th Ward Participatory Budgeting Steering Committee and the 49th Ward residents who volunteered countless hours as "Community Representatives."  I especially want to acknowledge 49th Ward resident Paul Bluestone of Bluestone & Associates for his generous contribution of design services.

And kudos to my 49th Ward Service Office staff--especially Nicole Summers, Betsy Vandercook and Wayne Frazier--who worked long hours to support the work of the steering committee and community representatives, and Josh Lerner and Gianpaolo Baiocchi of the Participatory Budgeting Project for their guidance and ongoing support.

Finally, and most importantly, my thanks to the 1,652 residents of the 49th Ward who voted in this historic election and took democracy into their own hands.  I'm proud to represent this amazing community.

Sincerely,

Joe Moore

Visit the website of the 49th Ward



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Solidarity Economy’s Role in Haiti’s Survival

by Editors @ Tuesday, March 30th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Global Justice

Solidarity as Economic System

for Dealing with Social Crisis

 

In Haiti, sharing communities are proving more shock-proof in the wake of disaster than market-based economies.


By Beverly Bell
posted Mar 26, 2010

 

“If it weren’t for solidarity, Haiti wouldn’t be alive today,” is an expression commonly heard here since the earthquake of January 12.

Haiti’s history is based on sharing and cooperation—expressed with gifts and solidarity toward those surviving on the margins. These displays usually go unnamed and unnoticed.

Some are formalized systems. One is called konbit—collective work groups in which members of the community labor without any expectation of compensation or even return. Konbit is the equivalent of a barn-raising, an option for those without enough hands to accomplish the task by themselves or enough money to hire labor. The cooperation of konbit has allowed farmers to harvest their fields and engage in other major work projects from time immemorial.

In sòl—revolving loan funds—a group of women puts a certain amount of money into a common pot each week or each month; the total is given to a different member each time. That way, each woman can, at some point, have enough capital to allow her to make a significant expense: hospital care for a sick mother, a carton of soap bars that she can buy on discount and sell for profit, a new cooking pot for a fried dough business on a street corner. She doesn’t return the allotment and there is no interest to pay; no one profits off of anyone else. The exchanges are based on trust and human relationships.

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Steelworkers Elaborate on Worker-Ownership Effort

by Editors @ Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Trade Unions

Photo: Worker-Owner at MCC Coop

The Mondragon Alliance:

The Goal Is to Create Jobs

By Putting People First

 

By Rob Witherell

United Steel Workers


Keynote Speech at Western Mass.

Jobs with Justice Conference March 6, 2010

--  An official unemployment rate of 10%
--  A real rate of unemployment and underemployment of 17%
--  Millions of good paying jobs lost, including 2 million manufacturing jobs in the past year alone
--  Stagnating wages
--  Frozen pensions and inadequate 401(k) plans
--  Sky rocketing health insurance costs
--  Millions of people without health insurance
--  Millions of people falling into poverty
--  Millions of people receiving food stamps to feed their families
--  Millions of people homeless and millions more struggling to stay in the homes they have

In the middle of the worst recession we've seen in the past 70 years, conservative politicians in Washington, DC are defiantly putting the purity of their ideals before the reality of the painful consequences.  Congress is not a high school debate club.  People need help, not talking points.

Wall Street executives, who were part of creating this crisis, were the first ones with their hands out, asking for help from Main Street taxpayers.  We gave them billions and billions of dollars.  As panic began to recede, they gave some of those billions back rather than have to live with the few strings attached.  These fat cat executives are trying to avoid accountability and transparency, regardless of the cost.  The millions of dollars in bonuses being paid again to executives, while insulting to the rest of us, are less harmful to our economy and our communities than the fact that little has changed in how Wall Street works.  Years of increasing deregulation have left us with a Wild West of finance where anything goes.

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Economic Policy Must Serve the People

by Editors @ Monday, March 22nd, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Organizing

Photo: Community meeting

Concern for Community:

Looking Deeper at the

Mondragon Principles

 

By John McNamara

"Concern for Community" is the last of the principles listed in the Identity Statement. It is the expression of the value of solidarity and social responsibility. It creates one of the multiple bottom lines for co-operatives.

It is not enough for a co-operative to be a profitable business. If it fails to be a leader for a more just, verdant and peaceful world*, then it has failed as a co-operative and might as well just be a group of greedy stockholders. Too often worker co-operators become insular and prone to naval gazing. Our structure is set up that way. We are predetermined (if we don’t act or create other structures) to focus on internal operations to the exclusion of the outside world. If we don’t engage this principle, we can fall into a pit of arrogance.

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‘Solidarity Economy’ Vision Blossoms in Brazil

by Editors @ Monday, March 15th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Global Justice

Report from the 1st Solidarity Economy

Social Forum & World Fair, Santa Maria

and Porto Alegre, Brazil - Jan 22-29, 2010

By Emily Kawano

Center for Popular Economics
and US Solidarity Economy Network

Santa Maria, in the southern-most state of Brazil, likes to call itself the solidarity economy capital of the world.


There's some truth to that. I recently had the privilege of attending the 1st Solidarity Economy Social Forum and World Fair at the invitation of  the FBES (Brazilian Forum on the Solidarity Economy),  SENAES (National Secretariat of the Solidarity Economy) and Marist Solidarity. The invitation was extended to the RIPESS* Board, and five of us were able to make the trip: Carlos Amorin (Uruguay), Ana Leighton (Chile), Eric Lavillunière (Luxembourg), Nancy Neamtan (Canada) and myself from the U.S.


For 15 years they have been hosting a Solidarity Economy Fair. This year it drew an estimated 150,000 people who came to shop for handicrafts, wine, cheese, sausages, pastries, bread, cookies, fruit and vegetables that are produced by solidarity economy enterprises. Many of these are worker cooperatives, while others are family-owned and run small businesses.

There were coops from the Amazon region like Polo Pro Bio, that sold lovely leaf shaped hot mats made out of sustainably harvested and processed rubber, and women's cooperatives selling jewelry made out of colorful locally harvested seeds and other natural materials.  Local vendors sold cold, freshly squeezed juices, sweet pastries, and hot turnovers with meat and cheese. There were many stalls selling the popular regional tea erva mate, which is sipped through a silver straw tipped with a strainer. Many people carried along a thermos of hot water to keep their tea topped up. Vendors were mostly from Brazil, but some traveled from other Latin American countries. At times it was hard to move because the aisles were so crowded.

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Prosperity in Italy Spurred by One Region’s Coops

by Editors @ Monday, March 8th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Organizing, Socialism

Poster: Italy's Federation of Consumer Coops

The Emilia-Romagna Coops:

A Market Without Capitalists

 

By Frances Moore Lappe
Alternet.com
A market economy and capitalism are synonymous --- or at least joined at the hip. That's what most Americans grow up assuming. But it is not necessarily so. Capitalism -- control by those supplying the capital in order to return wealth to shareholders -- is only one way to drive a market.


Granted, it is hard to imagine another possibility for how an economy could work in the abstract. It helps to have a real-life example.


And now I do.

In May I spent five days in Emilia Romagna, a region of four million people in northern central Italy. There, over the last 150 years, a network of consumer, farmer and worker-driven cooperatives has come to generate 30 percent to 40 percent of the region's GDP. Two of every three people in Emilia Romagna are members of co-ops.


The region, whose hub city is Bologna, is home to 8,000 co-ops, producing everything from ceramics to fashion to specialty cheese. Their industriousness is woven into networks based on what cooperative leaders like to call "reciprocity." All co-ops return 3 percent of profits to a national fund for cooperative development, and the movement supports centers providing help in finance, marketing, research and technical expertise.
The presumption is that by aiding each other, all gain. And they have. Per person income is 50 percent higher in Emilia Romagna than the national average.

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Who Is To Be Master? What Happens When Workers Occupy Factories

by Editors @ Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Socialism, Trade Unions

Photo: Flasko workers in Brazil

[Note from CarlD: Following are two articles on what debates break out when workers occupy or take ownership of factories. The first is from a single case in Brazil, the second from an earlier regionwide meeting on the topic in Venezuela. I think these are examples of the unity and tension in what Gramsci called 'wars of position' and 'wars on maneuver'. The solidarity economy concept is both supported and contested.]

Workers from Occupied

'Flasko' Factory Repond

to Brazil's President Lula

 

On 12/01/2010 President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva said publicly in his weekly column "The President replies”, a question of journalism student (Camila Delmondes) on the struggle of the workers occupied the factory Flaskô.
The response given (which can be read http://imprensa.planalto.gov.br/download/Informe_da_Hora/PRR120110.doc) believe it is essential that the workers' management of Flaskô respond to Squid and the entire working class which was said the President. First of all, it is worth noting that since 12 June 2003 when we occupied the factory and resumed production to ensure our jobs, we await a response from the President. During these seven years almost non stop fighting for the maintenance of Flaskô open under the control of workers and always demanded that the federal government.

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Cooperative ‘Payment Solidarity’ Means a Prevailing Wage or Better

by Editors @ Sunday, February 28th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Socialism

Payment Solidarity:

Looking Deeper at the

Mondragon Principles

 

By John McNamara

The Mondragon Co-operatives maintain the concept of wage solidarity. From the beginning, the ratio of the highest paid position (manager) and the lowest paid (new worker) was locked at 3:1. In the 80’s this changed and today there are some positions that earn a 6:1 ratio and one (the CEO of the International MCC) who receives 9:1. Even with the tripling of the upper end of the ratio, it is still a far cry from the 150 or even 300:1 ratios that modern stock corporations tend to employ.

What interests me about this principle (and I think that it should be in the Identity Statement as well), is that Mondragon expresses the co-operative value of solidarity. It puts solidarity into the operations of the co-operative.

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Why the Mondragon Coops Started with a School for Youth

by Editors @ Tuesday, February 16th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Education

Photo: MCC's worker-owned university

Education, Training

and Information: Looking

Deeper at Mondragon

By John McNamara

Feb. 8, 2010

“It is said that co-operation is an economic movement that utilizes educational activities, but it can also be said that co-operation is an educational movement that utilizes economic activities.“–Don José María Arizmendiarreta, founder of the Mondragon Cooperatives.

Here's a fun exercise, well maybe interesting more than “fun”, at co-operative gathering centers around the principles. Ask the co-operators present, “Which is the most important principle.” If there are more than seven people in the room, you will likely get about eight different answers.

People often focus on the user principles and democracy as being the principles that separate co-operatives from other businesses. Of course, in my opinion, the best answer is that they are all equally important and feed into each other. Case in point: how strong can democracy be if the electorate isn’t educated or informed?

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Needed: Self-Management and Workplace Democracy

by Editors @ Tuesday, January 26th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Socialism

Participatory Management:

Looking Deeper at the

Mondragon Principles

 

By John McNamara

The next principle from Mondragon is that of Participatory Management. This seems like a no-brainer for worker co-operatives. What is the point of going through all the work of setting up a worker co-op if the workers don’t actually have a say in how the place is run? They would be better off in a unionized Employee Stock Ownership Program.

I’ll get more into this in a second. First, I want to share the language of the principle from Mondragon (translated, as they all are, of course):

“The Mondragon Cooperative Experience believes that the democratic character of the Cooperative is not limited to membership aspects, but that it also implies the progressive development of self-management and consequently of the participation of members in the sphere of business management which, in turn, requires:

a) The development of suitable mechanisms and channels for participation.

b) Freedom of information concerning the development of the basic management variables of the Cooperative.

c) The practice of methods of consultation and negotiation with worker-members and their social representatives in economic, organisational and labour decisions which concern or affect them.

d) The systematic application of social and professional training plans for members.

e) The establishment of internal promotion as the basic means of covering posts with greater professional responsibility.”

(source: The Mondragon Cooperative Experience, by José María Ormaechea, 2000)

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