#worker self management

[left-reminders]

[transsexual-empress]

I have such mixed feelings about worker self management and cooperative movements. Because like, I want to believe that they are a meaningful way to make progress towards leftist goals for society that can actually occur while we ~wait for the revolution~. But at the same time, worker management/ownership does nothing to reduce the destructive market forces that act within capitalism, including imperialism and unsustainable growth. And if anything, the coercive nature of work is reenforced because you are no longer abstracted from the profit motive. Strikes and slowdowns become meaningless, and you’re potentially more likely to sacrifice your mental/physical health if you hold a personal stake in capital. Idk, I guess I’m just generally anti-work, and I have trouble reconciling that with my generally favorable view on worker ownership and management.

[intellectualselfdefense]

FUCK YEAH IMMIGRANT COOPERATIVE

actually not sure what happened to them but hopefully they're doing well. Keep in mind that there are cooperatives like this all over the place in the USA and Canada.

if somebody from san fran could update me or tell me how they're doing that'd be awesome!

[openmovements-blog]

"Given the wide variety of attempts at workplace democracy, what could we learn if we were to examine a huge number of those concrete cases, and sought to find out why some democratized companies failed, while others succeeded? In particular, could we discover what was there in the internal functioning of worker-managed companies that led some to thrive over the long-term, while others failed (even though their external conditions such as market opportunities, financial support, etc. were favorable)?

Just such a large-scale research project is reported on in the following article by Dr. Paul Bernstein (Boston, USA) to download as pdf. Fifty cases of workplace democracy, drawn from 15 different countries and political systems, covering more than a century of experiences, were examined in depth. Detailed comparison of the variety of methods by which they democratically managed their firms revealed that five components were absolutely essential for meaningful participation in managerial-level decision-making by workers to succeed and become self-reinforcing over the long-term. The article identifies those essential components, shows the variety of forms they can take when successful, and explains how they need to function in order to persist in making possible a meaningful democratic life within worker-managed companies."

Taken from workercontrol.net, a great resource and a project from some of our partners at OM.