SolidarityEconomy.net

The picture in the ad immediately caught my attention. The photo was of a very dignified older African American man looking into the camera, very determined and equally pensive. Underneath his photo was a caption giving his name—T. Willard Fair—and the fact that he was the veteran of 40 years of struggle in the Civil Rights Movement.

This was certainly enough to pique my interest.

Beneath the caption was a statement declaring that the alleged threat to African Americans comes from documented and undocumented immigrants. He went on to suggest that any notion of legalizing undocumented workers was a slap in the face of African Americans. The ad is associated with a group called the “Coalition for the Future American Worker.”

Fair’s attack is not surprising, although the virulence and historical nature of it is very unsettling, particularly because it is bound to strike a chord among many African Americans.

Black America has been taking a prolonged economic hit since the mid 1970s. The economic reorganization which many people call de-industrialization has had a devastating impact on the (more…)

Max Ogden, SolidarityEconomy.net

January 16, 2007, Australia

With acknowledgements for helpful comments – Dave Davies, Dave Feickert, and Greg Pettiona

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has led a very fine campaign against the reactionary industrial relations legislation and is winning the public debate. However in the long term the union movement needs to add another important dimension to its strategy, if it is not only to regain and increase membership and the critical role that a (more…)

You have probably heard the story of the scorpion that convinces a frog to carry it across a river. Halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog, which means both will drown. The frog does not understand; the scorpion explains, “I couldn’t help myself. It’s my nature.”

In the abstract, worker-owned enterprises and labor unions would appear to have much in common. Both share the goal of improving pay and working conditions. Both aim to give workers a say in the workplace. And both belong on any progressive’s short list of strategies for building a more just economic system.

But when unions and worker-owned businesses actually interact, they sometimes act more like the fabled arachnid.

The Ohio Employee Ownership Center at Kent State, where I work, provides preliminary technical assistance on worker buyouts. I once met with a group of employees exploring a worker buyout of a failing paper mill in southwest Ohio. When I (more…)

Tenants’ Bid Among a Dozen for Complexes (original title)

A group aligned with tenants of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village submitted a $4.5 billion bid yesterday to buy the 110 apartment buildings overlooking the East River in the hope of retaining the complexes as middle-income housing.

Their offer was neither the highest nor the lowest in one of the biggest real estate auctions of all time. Metropolitan Life, the company that built Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town in 1947 for returning veterans, got roughly a dozen offers by its 3 p.m. deadline yesterday, ranging from $4.3 billion to slightly more than $5 billion, according to real estate executives.

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I am waiting to board the train in San Diego when I notice the Border Patrol agent making his way down our line. He stops by each person who looks ‘Latino’ and asks them to present their legal documents. As the people standing next to me rummage for their identity papers, I stand by, angry, embarrassed and ashamed. In that moment, I don’t know what to say or do to protest.

My mind suddenly travels back in time. I ‘remember’ what it must have been like during slavery for Black people who made it to the North. If they had no papers, they were doomed to live each day in fear. If they were ‘legalized’ by free papers, they still always needed these documents, no matter who they were or how old they were or how long they had lived in their community. These papers were all that stood between them and being ‘deported’ and returned to their slave status.

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A leader in the revolutionary left in the US should feel like a fox in a chicken coop.

Increasingly large capitalists (Walmart, Enron, Wall-Street) are being exposed as so destructive to our society. The Bush administration creates global chaos and suffering. Attacks on democratic rights are expanding.

Thoughtful people in all strata of our society realize that there are dangerous trends that need to be met with positive alternatives. Young people, and leaders from all sectors, are open to new ideas including the notion of system change.

In other parts of the world resistance has and is being converted to system change. We see this taking place particularly in South and Central America as countries shift to the left.

In our own country, though, the social movement remains marginal despite deepening anxiety among the majority of our (more…)