How Workers Laid Off from a Chicago Factory Took It Over Themselves

[99th_Monkey]

3. IMHO this is what the Labor Movement needs to get back into, and pronto!!

rather than collective bargaining motif, which hasn't worked out so well
over the long haul, which has led to outsourcing, downsizing, and all
manner of anti-worker laws being passed. Fuck 'em. Just buy and own
the freaking factory, using well-known, tried and true methodologies and
models that have been around for over a century.
http://www.workerscontrol.net/authors/worker-cooperatives-united-states-historical-perspective-and-contemporary-assessment
This is what the Labor Movement was pretty much ALL ABOUT in the late
1800's and during 1900s, until they dumped all their eggs into the collective
bargaining basket in early 20th century in the US.

When the workers own the business, and hire management, there's no
fucking way they are going to "outsource" their jobs, and because they own
the business that pays their wages, they can actually afford to run at less
of a "profit", which to them is just a bonus on top of their wages.
see Mondragon phenomenon in Spain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Also there is a technical assistance resource nationally for this kind of thing,
either start-ups or buy-out conversions. http://www.nceo.org/

It isn't that the labor movement is "dead" so much as it IS that collective bargaining
as a model for leveraging a living wage, has outlived itself; and that worker
ownership is the future of the labor movement, if it has one.
Also see: "Revealed: Wall Street Journal More Interested in Caviar and Foie Gras
Than Employee-owned Firms: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/08-6