1. Mon, 31/12/12

    A New Era of Worker Ownership?

    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 workers of the just-formed New Era Windows cooperative in read more »

    Geographical: Era: Topic: Experiences: 
  2. Sun, 30/12/12

    Worker Direct Action Grows in Global North in Wake of Financial Meltdown

    The wave of factory occupations continuing through 2009 may represent only the beginning of a broader sit-down movement throughout the world, and, following examples in Latin America, demands for work

    The traditional path of labor-management collective bargaining has taken a dramatic turn in an era in which unions are too weak or timid to take action even as joblessness grows and companies losing financing are forced into bankruptcy by their creditors. As plants close and layoffs grow—and as workers recognize they can no longer interrupt the workflow with a strike when there is no flow to be interrupted—they are engaging in militant action to save their jobs and livelihoods. read more »

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  3. Mon, 15/10/12

    Anton Pannekoek: Workers Councils

    Read the book on-line

    "This book has been written in the war years 1941-42 under the occupation of Holland by the Germans. The author, who during many years attentively observed and sometimes actively took part in the workers' movement, gives here a summary of what from these experiences and study may be derived as to methods and aims of the workers' fight for freedom. What a century of workers' struggles presents to us is neither a series of ever again failing attempts at liberalism, nor a steadfast forward march of the workers following a fixed plan of old well-tried tactics.

    read more »
    Theorists: Geographical: Era: Topic: Media: 
  4. Thu, 20/09/12

    Gabriel Kuhn (ed.): All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution

    Review by Ralf Hoffrogge

    Every schoolchild on the globe knows something about the Russian Revolution from 1917. It was the origin of a state called Soviet Union and a political confrontation later known as the cold war which shaped the 20th century longer than any other political conflict.

    Unlike the crucial events of 1917, the German Revolution of 1918 is not part of the global memory. It did not erect a socialist state as hoped by many of its protagonists and instead ended with a fragile republic that lasted only twelve years and was destroyed by the Nazi Party in 1933. read more »

    Theorists: Geographical: Era: Topic: Media: 
  5. Mon, 10/09/12

    On the Crisis of Capitalism, Argentina’s Worker-Recuperated Enterprises, and the Possibilities for Another World

    An interview with Eduardo Murúa, former president of Argentina’s Movement of Recuperated Enterprises, on how workers occupy failing firms, resist repression and re-open them as workers’ coops.

    In the interview, Murúa lays out how almost 10,000 workers in over 200 once-failing, owner-run firms eventually came to manage them cooperatively and without bosses. Most poignantly for our current conjuncture, he also predicts that the world’s capitalist system, debt-ridden and exploitative as it is, is inevitably heading for an impending financial crisis – a crisis we are now living through. He also expresses clearly and with passion his vision for a different Argentina and Latin America – where wealth might be distributed more equitably and where work, the means of production, and the products of workers’ labours could be controlled by workers themselves.

    read more »

    Geographical: Era: Topic: Experiences: 
  6. Fri, 31/08/12

    Between Ignorance and Staging

    Review by Ralf Hoffrogge

    Henning Fischer, Uwe Fuhrmann, Jana König, Elisabeth Steffen, Till Sträter (eds.):

    Zwischen Ignoranz und Inszenierung: Die Bedeutung von Mythos und Geschichte für die Gegenwart der Nation (Between Ignorance and Staging: The Present Significance of Myth and History for the Nation) read more »

    Geographical: Era: Topic: Media: 
  7. Sat, 21/07/12

    “You can’t? We can!” Workers at Mining Industry factory in Northern Greece vote for and prepare for self-management of their factory – victory to the workers!

    Concerning the struggle at VIOMIHANIKI METALLEYTIKI (Mining Industry) in Thessaloniki
    read more »

    Geographical: Era: Topic: 
  8. Sat, 31/03/12

    Worker Co-operatives and Democracy, Pt.1

    Although workers' cooperatives amount to an insignificant percentage of the larger economy, they resonate with a history of liberation that situates itself outside the boundaries of capitalism.

    Three months into the UN year of the co-op, after over half a year of OWS and now beginning the fifth year the continuing economic crisis a vast expansion of interest in co-operatives has been generated. More specifically, this interest has focused on the most radical aspect of co-operative development – worker cooperatives. Those of us who are active in promoting a democratic economy, as an alternative to the economy of the oligarchy, can only be pleased with this interest and the inquiries that we have received. read more »

    Geographical: Era: Topic: 
  9. Mon, 26/03/12

    2011 Eastern Conference in Baltimore

    Immanuel Ness reports, via the "Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung", on the 2011 Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy. read more »

    Geographical: Era: Topic: 
  10. Sun, 25/03/12

    America’s Worker-Owned Plywood Firms

    A 1974 article on the successes of worker-owned and -managed firms within the plywood-manufacturing industry of Oregon and Washington state.

    Worker-owned and -managed firms have succeeded impressively in the US , within the plywood-manufacturing industry of Oregon and Washington state.  The following article (downloadable as a .PDF file) presents their history, and examines their inner life in detail. read more »

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