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 difference between councils and trade unions is that, while the latter lose their functions in a decaying capitalism, the former become a prefiguration of the organisation of socialist society."
These theses written in the context of the 1970s 'autonomia operaia' in Italy intend to initiate a debate on workers’ control of the factories as a 'democratic and peaceful' road to socialism.
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.