All over the country, people—like the workers of Chicago’s New Era Windows—are building worker-owned cooperatives that root jobs in the communities that need them.
The economic crisis that began in 2008 has put workers’ control and workplace democracy back on the agenda in the countries of the northern hemisphere.
Certain changes to the cooperative form could permit the creation of enterprises that would not belong to anyone specifically but would be at the disposal of its users, workers and clients alike.
This controversy illustrates the difference between the defeated world of ideology and the vibrant and outward-looking world of action that strives to disengage from the dominant relations.
Workers' management is not just a new administrative technique: it means that for the mass of people, new relations will have to develop with their work, the very content of work will have to alter.