#worker self-management

[the-funtime-autocrat]

Early in the 20th century there were a variety of movements championing the independent small producer and the cooperative management of large enterprises including anarcho-syndicalism from the extreme Left and Distributism from the reactionary Catholic Right. These tendencies still exist on the outer fringes of political and economic thought. One need not agree with every bit of analysis or every proposal advanced by these schools of thought to recognize their visionary aspects. One of these is the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, a collective of worker-owned and operated industries originating from the Basque region of Spain. Having been in existence since 1941, the Mondragon cooperatives initially established a 'People's Bank' of the kind originally suggested by the godfather of classical anarchism, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon for the development of still more enterprises which now total more than 150 in number, including the private University of Mondragon. It's supermarket division is the third largest retail outlet in Spain and the largest Spanish-owned food store chain. Each individual cooperative has a worker's council of its own, and the entire cooperative federation is governed by a congress of workers from the different enterprises.

Keith Preston, “Attack the System” (2014).

[the-funtime-autocrat]

Still another quite interesting example is the Brazilian company Semco SA. While privately owned as a family business, Semco practices a form of radical industrial democracy. Under the leadership of Ricardo Semler, who inherited the company from his father, Semco maintains a management structure where workers manage themselves and set their own production goals and budgets with remuneration based on productivity, efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Workers receive 25% of the profits from their division. Middle management has essentially been eliminated. Workers have the right of veto over company expenditures. Job duties are frequently rotated and even the CEO position is shared by six people, including Ricardo Semler, who serve six month terms as the CEO. The company now has over 3,000 employees, annual revenues of $200 million and a growth rate of 40% each year.

Keith Preston, “Attack The System” (2014).

[resourcesforradicals]

It was a very nice, a very humane moment when the last few workers who still had doubts about whether or not to proceed with self-management eventually decided to do so. It was when the Argentine worker came to share his experiences [of factory self-management], explaining and describing how this struggle goes beyond the recovery of the factory itself: it is a struggle that transforms people, it completely changes people and their environment.

Theodoros Karyotis, spokesman of the Vio.Me Solidarity Initiative.

from a great article about Vio.Me, their processes, and identification with the Recovered Factory Movement in Argentina.