'Sovereignty of Labor:'
A Deeper Look at the
Mondragon Principles
A series on the core principles of
the Mondragon Cooperatives in Spain
By John McNamara
http://www.cooperativeconsult.com
The Mondragon principle “Sovereignty of Labor” created departure from the cooperative movement. While the Rochdale Pioneers had good intentions, they abandoned worker cooperation in the 1870’s. The Fabian Socialist moved even further from the ideals of Robert Owen declaring consumerism as the lowest common denominator for human relationships eschewing workers as merely another stakeholder group. Even the French cooperativist Charles Gide turned away from worker associations. Sadly, this act left the labor movement adrift from the cooperative world even as organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World and the Congress of Industrial Organizations developed worldviews akin to the ideal of cooperation.
In the US, as in most of the Capitalist dominated world, the idea of labor being sovereign is almost non-existent. Business schools spend a lot of money teaching future managers how to manage workers—increase their productivity and the companies profits Except in the more enlightened firms, managers treat workers as errant children. Likewise, the dominant culture makes work something to be avoided and champions obstruction as “fighting the man”. People who do work hard tend to be treated as suck-ups and “upwardly mobile”. We mock the Ragged Dick stories in which “by luck and by pluck and good boy may succeed”. We have been conditioned to hate work and to distrust anyone who suggests that we work hard. The wobblies ran a cartoon called Blockhead who ridiculed the “company man”.
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Bill Moyers Talks
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.â€
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
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
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
Tenants’ Bid Among a Dozen for Complexes (
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 