Workplace Democracy

Worker-Owned, Worker-Spun

Ethan — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:34:54 -0400

Introducing the Green Mountain Spinnery, a worker-owned wool spinnery in Vermont.

Taking Back the South Bronx: Opening Day at a Green Worker Co-op

Ethan — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:39:52 -0400

By Lauren Kozol

Where Teachers Rule

Ethan — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:32:36 -0400

A school with no principals? It's like a shop with no bosses. Introducing "Teacher Cooperatives"!

Who Gains From the Green Economy?

Ethan — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:43:29 -0400

Green economics and racial justice

Searching For the Next Cooperative Principle

Ethan — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:52:31 -0500

By Len Krimerman

In 1995, the International Cooperative Alliance adopted seven cooperative principles to define and guide cooperatives throughout the world. Briefly stated, the "traditional seven" include: voluntary and open membership; democratic member control; member economic participation; autonomy and independence; education, training and information; cooperation among cooperatives; and concern for community.

A Strategy for Unions and Coops: Toward Building A Labor-Ownership Economy

Ethan — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:15:54 -0500

By Lisa Stolarski

Both Hands in the Soil

There is an ethical imperative to shift the balance of economic power away from corporate Capitalism and toward economies that benefit us all. Beginning with this assumption, I will explain how it is possible for unions and worker cooperatives to collaborate strategically to take market share away from absentee-owned and wage labor capitalist enterprises and place control of resources and production in the hands of communities of working people.

Unions & Cooperatives: Allies in the Struggle to Build Democratic Workplaces

Ethan — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:13:16 -0500

As labor organizers, we struggle in the field every day to improve the lives of workers; we are in search of tools and alternatives for working people that will meet the needs of today's casualized and insecure workforce, with shrinking or negligible benefits. It is in the spirit of innovative leadership that we propose that the labor movement use worker cooperatives, an alternative organizing strategy added to more traditional labor organizing methods, as a means of returning control of their lives to the American working people.

Our Eyes On the Prize: From a "Worker Co-op Movement" to a Transformative Social Movement

Ethan — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:56:02 -0500

While empathizing with those who feel a sense of "inevitability" in the face of today's powerful capitalist economy (and disagreeing with those who see it as generally acceptable), I hold firmly to the perspective that a more just and democratic economy is both necessary and possible. And I believe that the greatest chance of increasing and assuring viability for the workplace democracy movement may rest in our ability to keep our "eyes on the prize"; that is, on the long term replacement of capitalism―an economy which socializes costs and privatizes benefits―with an economy of democratic cooperation―in which costs and benefits are democratically and equitably shared throughout society.

Harmony Agricultural Cooperative Fights Exclusion In Brazil

Ethan — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:37:09 -0500

By Mario Osava, www.ipsnews.net

Worker Co-ops and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives

Ethan — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:42:35 -0500

By John Zippert, Federation of Souther Cooperatives

From August 16-18, 2007, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund will celebrate its fortieth (40th) anniversary and Annual Meeting. Growing from 22 cooperatives and credit unions organized by SNCC, CORE, SCLC and other civil rights organizations in the South in the 1960's, the Federation has worked with thousands of Black farmers and other low income rural folks over the past four decades.