More than 25,000 teachers in Los Angeles won't be going to work Monday after a breakdown in contract talks. The strike in the nation's second largest school district affects more than 1,000 schools and more than 600,000 students. A funding battle between teachers and the districts follows similar walkouts last year in six states.
Showing posts with label labor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label labor. Show all posts
Organize!
Today is the birthday of Joe Hill (Oct. 7, 1879 – Nov. 19, 1915), a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Party poopers
“Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties.” -- Alexander Hamilton, 1787While at present political parties are practical mechanisms for the expression of political intentions, for average citizens allegiance to party -- partisanship -- is self-defeating.
It was the existence of independent concentrations of power and influence, especially labor unions, national associations (such as the NAACP) and, on the local level, social clubs, that gave ordinary people muscle in the long struggle for economic and social justice.
Restoring such organizations must be part of any long-term reform of our democracy.
“If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.” -- Thomas Jefferson, 1789
Resource: Mapping U.S. Social Movements Through the 20th Century
The links on this site lead to more than 80 visualizations and data tables, with more to come. Dozens of maps and charts show the activist geography of NAACP, United Farm Workers (UFW), Socialist Party, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Communist Party, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). SNCC, Black Panther Party, the Chicana/o Movement, and underground newspapers from the 1965-75 are in the works. The National Woman's Party and NOW will follow.
Mapping U.S. Social Movements Through the 20th Century, directed by Professor James Gregory (University of Washington).
See, also: IWW History Project--The Industrial Workers of the World 1905-1935 and Upton Sinclair's End Poverty in California Campaign.
Mapping U.S. Social Movements Through the 20th Century, directed by Professor James Gregory (University of Washington).
See, also: IWW History Project--The Industrial Workers of the World 1905-1935 and Upton Sinclair's End Poverty in California Campaign.
People sitting behind desks think raising the retirement age is a good idea.
"A recurring theme in debates over Social Security policy is that workers should be encouraged to work later into their lives by raising the age at which they can get full benefits. Implicit in this argument is that most workers are in a situation where they would be able to work to an older age; however, many older workers stop working because they can no longer meet the physical demands of their job.
"In 2010, CEPR did an analysis that examined the percentage of older workers (ages 58 and over) who either worked in physically demanding jobs or in difficult work conditions. This paper is an update of that earlier study and is based on data from 2014.
"Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) and Occupational Information Network (O*NET) it finds that in 2014, 8.0 million workers ages 58 and older (34.5 percent) had physically demanding jobs, while 5.1 million workers ages 58 and older (22.1 percent) had jobs with difficult working conditions. About 10.2 million workers ages 58 and older (43.8 percent) were employed either in physically demanding jobs or jobs with difficult working conditions. The workers who were most likely to be in these jobs were Latinos, the least educated (less than a high school diploma), immigrants, and the lowest wage earners.
"Physically demanding jobs include general physical activities, handling and moving objects, spending significant time standing, walking or running, making repetitive motions, or having any highly physically demanding work. Highly physically demanding jobs require dynamic, explosive, static, or trunk strength, bending or twisting of the body, stamina, maintaining balance, or kneeling or crouching. Difficult working conditions include working in a cramped workspace, labor outdoors, or exposure to abnormal temperatures, contaminants, hazardous equipment, whole body vibration, or distracting or uncomfortable noise."
The nation’s largest private-sector employer is told to obey the law
A federal administrative law judge has ordered
Wal-Mart to offer 16 former workers their previous jobs and to make them "whole for any loss of earnings and other benefits suffered as a result of the discrimination against them." The company must also hold meetings in more than two dozen stores to inform workers of their rights to organize under U.S. labor law.
The rest of the story:
Wal-Mart strikes lawful, must reinstate workers: NLRB judge by Nathan Layne (Reuters).
Further reading:
How Walmart Keeps an Eye on Its Massive Workforce: The retail giant is always watching by Susan Berfield (Bloomberg Businessweek).
Life as a Wal-Mart worker -- and how its employees are monitored at all times: America’s real-life dystopia: Wal-Mart is straight out of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley by Aaron R. Hanlon (Salon).
“We are not anti-union; we are pro-associate”: A Manager's Toolbox To Remaining Union Free ("CONFIDENTIAL" Wal-Mart document) (source: ReclaimDemocracy.org).
The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy by Charles Fishman (Amazon). "[T]he story of Wal-Mart is really the story of the transformation of the American economy over the past 20 years." Fishman is "careful to present the consumer benefits of Wal-Mart's staggering growth and to place Wal-Mart in the larger context of globalization and the rise of mega-corporations. But he also presents the case against Wal-Mart in arresting detail, and his carefully balanced approach only makes the downside of Wal-Mart's market dominance more vivid." -- Publisher's Weekly
The discount giant is closing 269 stores worldwide—and not even bothering to build stores it promised in poor neighborhoods: Can Cities Afford to Trust Walmart? by Kriston Capps (CityLab)
Extra credit:
This video is shown to all "associates" at on-boarding: it's imperative that everyone working for Wal-Mart understands that s/he is "better off" without a union.
The parody t-shirt at the top of this post and other merchandise is available from Reclaim Democracy!: "Reclaim Democracy! is dedicated to restoring democratic authority over corporations, reviving grassroots democracy, and establishing appropriate limits on corporate influence. We work for systemic change, instead of reacting to corporate agendas."
The rest of the story:
Wal-Mart strikes lawful, must reinstate workers: NLRB judge by Nathan Layne (Reuters).
Further reading:
How Walmart Keeps an Eye on Its Massive Workforce: The retail giant is always watching by Susan Berfield (Bloomberg Businessweek).
Life as a Wal-Mart worker -- and how its employees are monitored at all times: America’s real-life dystopia: Wal-Mart is straight out of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley by Aaron R. Hanlon (Salon).
“We are not anti-union; we are pro-associate”: A Manager's Toolbox To Remaining Union Free ("CONFIDENTIAL" Wal-Mart document) (source: ReclaimDemocracy.org).
The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy by Charles Fishman (Amazon). "[T]he story of Wal-Mart is really the story of the transformation of the American economy over the past 20 years." Fishman is "careful to present the consumer benefits of Wal-Mart's staggering growth and to place Wal-Mart in the larger context of globalization and the rise of mega-corporations. But he also presents the case against Wal-Mart in arresting detail, and his carefully balanced approach only makes the downside of Wal-Mart's market dominance more vivid." -- Publisher's Weekly
The discount giant is closing 269 stores worldwide—and not even bothering to build stores it promised in poor neighborhoods: Can Cities Afford to Trust Walmart? by Kriston Capps (CityLab)
Extra credit:
This video is shown to all "associates" at on-boarding: it's imperative that everyone working for Wal-Mart understands that s/he is "better off" without a union.
The parody t-shirt at the top of this post and other merchandise is available from Reclaim Democracy!: "Reclaim Democracy! is dedicated to restoring democratic authority over corporations, reviving grassroots democracy, and establishing appropriate limits on corporate influence. We work for systemic change, instead of reacting to corporate agendas."
FIGHT WAGE THEFT! Support garment workers organizing!
Garment Worker Center in Los Angeles invites all to join September 9, 2015 press conference and benefit performance of award winning play "Real Women Have Curves" at Pasadena Playhouse. FIGHT WAGE THEFT! Support garment workers organizing!
Frank Little: The Hobo Agitator (PBS)
The summer of 1917: the war of the Copper Kings was winding down, a highly charged time for Butte, which had a socialist mayor and no unions. This extremely well done profile of Frank Little, the hobo agitator, brings that summer to life, when vigilantes roamed freely though the city and dominated the mines. Little was one of the major IWW leaders of the time; he was lynched at Butte on August 1 1917. The doc also provides background on Butte and copper, the emergence of militant unionism, and some of the radicalism of the times. Don't pass this up.
Resource: Left Labor Project
"Left Labor Project works to build a mass movement of working people who share the goals of progressive movements across the country and the world. We believe that the real basis for a democratic future is the working class, in its diversity – all colors, ages, creeds, whatever sexual orientation or legal status, employed and unemployed. Within that shared view, we work through our differences, learn from one another, and look for flexible and effective strategies and tactics to change the city and the world for the better." Visit Left Labor Project.
Labor Day!
“Never forget, people DIED for the eight hour workday.” — Rebecca Gordon
This poster is from the fabulous Ricardo Levins Morales Art Studio.
Living big at $7.25 an hour
The Times spent a few column inches yesterday mulling over the mystery of why the poverty rate hasn't budged in 30 years. Gosh. I don't know. I'm sure it can't have anything to do with the systematic decimation of organized labor and the shipping of American jobs to China and Mexico. Can't see how starving the free universal education system could have anything to do with it. It can't be because of all that expenditure of public wealth on the liberal project of empire-building instead of on the building roads and bridges and harbors and airports and hospitals and schools and housing here at home. Can't be that. You can't blame the war on drugs, or the creation of a vast army of former inmates without jobs, or the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars on incarceration instead of education, on building prisons instead of schools. I'm sure it has nothing to do with Bill Clinton's welfare reforms. Surely it wasn't because the minimum wage wasn't linked to inflation or to worker productivity so that as the decades rolled by low end jobs were worth less and less. Couldn't be that. Certainly it had nothing to do with the mortgage crisis. Or allowing the banks to bleed us dry. Or slashing services for the poor and middle class so that taxes for the very wealthiest could be slashed, too. I can't think what the reason might be. Can you?
A little history never hurt anybody
[Striking families at Ludlow before the massacre, April 20, 1914]
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre, described by Howard Zinn as “the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history. This was the Colorado coal strike that began in September 1913 and culminated in the ‘Ludlow Massacre’ of April 1914.” Zinn first learned of the Ludlow Massacre from a song by Woody Guthrie. The song inspired Zinn to learn more about the massacre that “nobody had ever mentioned in any of my history courses [and] which no textbook of mine had ever mentioned.”
For the centennial of this major event in labor history, the Zinn Education Project is offering resources to teach outside the textbook about the Ludlow Massacre here.
Resource: The Zinn Education Project
quote unquote: Henry Ford
"What good is industry if it be so unskillfully managed as not to return a living to everyone concerned? No question is more important than that of wages -- most of the people of the country live on wages. The scale of their living -- the rate of their wages -- determines the prosperity of the country." -- Henry Ford, born 150 years ago today.
Is there anyone in Congress or the White House, elected official or staff member, who would work for $9 an hour?
For someone so ept at electoral politics, President Obama has repeatedly shown himself to be artless when it comes to the political side of governance. On issue after issue, he has entered policy negotiations with low-ball proposals that set-up compromises that, in real terms, hand victory to his opponents.
Take the $9 minimum wage proposal. A person making $9 an hour will earn, before deductions, $360 a week. That's working a full 40-hour week, but many retail and service jobs offer much shorter hours. Even a worker lucky enough to land two full-time jobs -- 80 hours a week -- would take home less than $720 a week after deductions. Clearly, a minimum wage of $9 is not sufficient if the goal is to assure that, as the president said Tuesday in his address to Congress, no one with a full time job should have to live in poverty.
The problem with Obama's maladroit handling of negotiations with the conservatives is that he establishes benchmarks that, while they may achieve "compromise," not only don't fix the problem being addressed but make it less likely that a better result can be achieved in the future (think of health care reform). If a deal at all cost is your goal, $9 may make some sense; as policy, it's ridiculous.
Labor and liberals should have nothing to do with it.
Take the $9 minimum wage proposal. A person making $9 an hour will earn, before deductions, $360 a week. That's working a full 40-hour week, but many retail and service jobs offer much shorter hours. Even a worker lucky enough to land two full-time jobs -- 80 hours a week -- would take home less than $720 a week after deductions. Clearly, a minimum wage of $9 is not sufficient if the goal is to assure that, as the president said Tuesday in his address to Congress, no one with a full time job should have to live in poverty.
The problem with Obama's maladroit handling of negotiations with the conservatives is that he establishes benchmarks that, while they may achieve "compromise," not only don't fix the problem being addressed but make it less likely that a better result can be achieved in the future (think of health care reform). If a deal at all cost is your goal, $9 may make some sense; as policy, it's ridiculous.
Labor and liberals should have nothing to do with it.
How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the '1 Percent'
by George Lakey (Waging Nonviolence 2012-01-25)
While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice.
Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.
(A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931.)
Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”
Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.
Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.
In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent.
When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.
In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24.
The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!
The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928.
The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations.
Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt.
By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.
This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)
Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.
Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice.
Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.
(A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931.)
Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”
Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.
Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.
In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent.
When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.
In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24.
The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!
The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928.
The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations.
Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt.
By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.
This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)
Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.
Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
Labor: The attack on unions is an attack on the middle class
Unionized workers earn more and get more generous benefits. In 2010, wages of workers in unionized manufacturing 
companies in Indiana were 16 percent higher than in nonunion plants. One study concluded that the decline in unionization since the 1970s is responsible for one-fifth to one-third of the growth in inequality in this country. Voters, unionized or not, should recognize the new "right to work" push for what it is: bad economics and cynical politics. -- New York Times editorial (2012-01-07).
See, also: Working hard to make Indiana look bad: The tortured, uphill case for ‘right-to-work’ by Gordon Lafer (Economic Policy Institute 2012-01-03).
Unions, Norms, and the Rise in American Wage Inequality by Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld (Department of Sociology, Harvard University 2011-03).
Update:
See, also: Republicans Douse ‘Light of Democracy’ and Ram Through RTW Bill by Mike Hall (AFL-CIO Now Blog News 2012-01-10).
companies in Indiana were 16 percent higher than in nonunion plants. One study concluded that the decline in unionization since the 1970s is responsible for one-fifth to one-third of the growth in inequality in this country. Voters, unionized or not, should recognize the new "right to work" push for what it is: bad economics and cynical politics. -- New York Times editorial (2012-01-07).See, also: Working hard to make Indiana look bad: The tortured, uphill case for ‘right-to-work’ by Gordon Lafer (Economic Policy Institute 2012-01-03).
Unions, Norms, and the Rise in American Wage Inequality by Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld (Department of Sociology, Harvard University 2011-03).
Update:
Collective bargaining…has played a major role in America’s economic miracle. Unions represent some of the freest institutions in this land. There are few finer examples of participatory democracy to be found anywhere. Too often, discussion about the labor movement concentrates on disputes, corruption and strikes. But while these things are headlines, there are thousands of good agreements reached and put into practice every year without a hitch. -- Ronald Reagan (New York Times 1981-09-04)quoted in It's Scott Walker's Party: How anti-union zealotry defines GOP race by John Nichols (Nation of Change 2012-01-09).
See, also: Republicans Douse ‘Light of Democracy’ and Ram Through RTW Bill by Mike Hall (AFL-CIO Now Blog News 2012-01-10).
Resource: Teaching about Employee Ownership
The Aspen Institute hosts the largest online academic repository of
teaching and background materials on employee ownership. The Institute's Curriculum Library on Employee Ownership (CLEO) includes books, articles, case studies and teaching materials. The Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education hosts CLEO with support from the Foundation for Enterprise Development and the Employee Ownership Foundation.
teaching and background materials on employee ownership. The Institute's Curriculum Library on Employee Ownership (CLEO) includes books, articles, case studies and teaching materials. The Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education hosts CLEO with support from the Foundation for Enterprise Development and the Employee Ownership Foundation.
Resource: Workers' Cooperatives
Cooperatives: A Tool for Community Economic Development, a manual produced by The University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives, is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of cooperatives: what they are, how they work, and how to start one. It includes numerous examples of co-ops in Wisconsin and other states that are successfully meeting the needs of their members and their communities.
Resources:
The University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives
Other academic centers that focus on cooperatives include The Ohio Employee Ownership Center at Kent State and Southern New Hampshire University's Community Economic Development Department
American Worker Cooperative: an inventory of people, organizations, writings, media, and tools
U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives
Regional federations and support organizations in the Bay Area, Madison, the Pioneer Valley, Austin, and New York City
The Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation
The Workers' Paradise blog
Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives' worker cooperative resources
CooperationWorks!, a national organization of cooperative development centers and practitioners
Resources:
The University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives
Other academic centers that focus on cooperatives include The Ohio Employee Ownership Center at Kent State and Southern New Hampshire University's Community Economic Development Department
American Worker Cooperative: an inventory of people, organizations, writings, media, and tools
U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives
Regional federations and support organizations in the Bay Area, Madison, the Pioneer Valley, Austin, and New York City
The Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation
The Workers' Paradise blog
Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives' worker cooperative resources
CooperationWorks!, a national organization of cooperative development centers and practitioners
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