permaculture

[Permaculture Cooperative <permaculturecoop@gmail.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Permaculture Cooperative <permaculturecoop@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Subject: Fwd: Mondragon and Permaculture Worker Cooperatives
To: COMFOOD Listerv <comfood@elist.tufts.edu>





there is a lot of interest in the industrial sector about Mondragon doing a
deal with the united Steel Workers

we where in Mondragon earlier this year researching a permaculture workers
cooperative... see below
-- 
Nicholas Roberts
skype permaculturecoop
plans http://gaiapermaculture.com
video http://Permaculture.TV



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nicholas Roberts <nicholas@themediasociety.org>
Date: Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 9:48 AM
Subject: Re: [SEN] Fwd: Breaking New Ground Dept: Steelworkers Seek to
Create Jobs with Worker-Owned Factories




hi all

we where fortunate enough to be in Mondragon earlier this year research a
Permaculture Worker Cooperative... or in other words a global network of
sustainability worker cooperatives

I have posted some photos



Photos of Mondragon Cooperative Tour http://permaculture.tv/?p=1056
Photos from Mondragon or Arrasate in Basque http://permaculture.tv/?p=1050


Making a Permaculture Mondragon Cooperative
complex<http://gaiapermaculture.com/projects/permaculturecooperative/blog/2009/07/17/mondragon-permaculture-cooperative/>
*Kirstie & Nicholas had an informal discussion with Professor Fred
Freundlich<http://www.mondragon.edu/ezf/albisteak/fred-freundlich-ek-doktore-tesia-irakurri-du?language_sync=1>of
Mondragon
University <http://www.mondragon.edu/> about the history and state of the
worker-cooperative movement, and Mondragon in particular, in reference to
our establishing a global permaculture worker cooperative. *

 *We came away from the meeting optimistic that our dreams of developing
sustainability projects in a worker-cooperative framework can be realized.
 The two systems have the potential to be mutually beneficial:  permaculture
can contribute to the environmental sustainability aspects of Mondragon, and
the economic and social sustainability aspects of the Mondragon cooperative
can stabilize permaculture in the world (Gaia Permaculture). A permaculture
worker-cooperative could research, develop and replicate the permaculture
worker cooperative complex and create a truly sustainable future. A Gaia
Permaculture Mondragon Cooperative Complex.­ *

­

*THE GIST OF IT *
 Our hopes for a global permaculture cooperative have been tempered by (1)
our concerns that a global worker-cooperative cannot function profitably
while embedded in the current global out-sourcing entrepreneurial culture,
and by (2) our observations of the dysfunctional hierarchical relationships
which predominate at established Permaculture farms in Australia
http://gaiapermaculture.com/projects/permaculturecooperative/blog/2009/07/17/mondragon-permaculture-cooperative/



-- 
Nicholas Roberts
skype permaculturecoop
plans http://gaiapermaculture.com
video http://Permaculture.TV



On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 7:04 AM, Emily Kawano 
<emily@populareconomics.org>wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Carl Davidson <carld717@gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 12:01 AM
> Subject: Breaking New Ground Dept: Steelworkers Seek to Create Jobs with
> Worker-Owned Factories
> To: progressivesforobama <progressivesforobama@yahoogroups.com>
>
>
> *Photo: High-tech Machine Tools from MCC*
>
> ‘One Worker, One Vote:'
>
> US Steelworkers to Experiment
>
> with Factory Ownership,
>
> Mondragon Style
>
>
> *By Carl Davidson*
> SolidarityEconomy.net
>
>
> Oct. 27, 2009--The United Steel Workers Union, North America's largest
> industrial trade union, announced a new collaboration with the world's
> largest worker-owned cooperative, Mondragon International, based in the
> Basque region of Spain.
>
>
> News of the announcement spread rapidly throughout the communities of
> global justice activists, trade union militants, economic democracy and
> socialist organizers, green entrepreneurs and cooperative practitioners of
> all sorts. More than a few raised an eyebrow, but the overwhelming response
> was, "Terrific! How can we help?"
> The vision behind the agreement is job creation, but with a new twist.
> Since government efforts were being stifled by the greed of financial
> speculators and private capital was more interested in cheap labor abroad,
> unions will take matters into their own hands, find willing partners, and
> create jobs themselves, but in sustainable businesses owned by the workers.
>
>
> "We see today's agreement as a historic first step towards making union
> co-ops a viable business model that can create good jobs, empower workers,
> and support communities in the United States and Canada," said USW
> International President Leo W. Gerard.  "Too often we have seen Wall Street
> hollow out companies by draining their cash and assets and hollowing out
> communities by shedding jobs and shuttering plants.  We need a new business
> model that invests in workers and invests in communities."
>
>
> "This is a wonderful idea," said Rick Kimbrough, a retired steelworker from
> Aliquippa, Pa, and a 37-year-veteran of Jones and Laughlin Steel. "Ever
> since they shut down our mill, I've always thought, 'why shouldn't we own
> them?' If we did, they wouldn't be running away." J&L's Aliquippa Works was
> once one of the largest steel mills in the world, but is now shutdown and
> largely dismantled. Much of the production moved to Brazil.
>
>
> The USW partnership with Mondragon was a bold stroke. While hardly a
> household word in the U.S and little known in the mass media, the Mondragon
> Cooperative Corporation (MCC) has been the mother lode of fresh ideas on
> economic democracy and social entrepreneurship worldwide for 50 years.
> Started in 1956 with five workers in a small shop making kerosene stoves,
> MCC today has over 100,000 worker-owners in some 260 enterprises in 40
> countries. Annual sales are pegged at more than 16 billion Euros with a wide
> range of products--high tech machine tools, motor buses, household
> appliances and a chain of supermarkets. MCC also maintains its own banks,
> health clinics, welfare system, schools and the 4000 student Mondragon
> University--all worker-owned coops.
>
>
> Over the past decade, there have been a handful of efforts to apply the
> model and methods of MCC to projects in the United States. Almost all are on
> a small scale--several bakeries in the Bay Area, some bookstores, and most
> recently, an industrial laundry and solar panel enterprise in Cleveland. In
> Chicago, Austin Polytechnical Academy, a new public high school in a
> low-income neighborhood, was inspired, in part, by Mondragon, and a group of
> its students recently took part in a study tour of MCC in the Basque region.
>
>
> But the USW initiative, and the potential clout behind it, puts the
> Mondragon vision on wider terrain. An integrated chain of worker-owned
> enterprises that might promote a green restructuring of the U.S. economy,
> for instance, would not only be a powerful force in its own right. It would
> also have a ripple effect, likely to spur other government and private
> efforts to both supplement and compete with it.
>
>
> The USW is proceeding cautiously. "We've made a commitment here," said Rob
> Witherell during a recent interview at his Organizing Department's offices
> in the USW Pittsburgh headquarters. "But for that reason, we want to make
> sure we get it right, even if it means starting slowly and on a modest
> scale."
>
>
> What this means at the moment, Witherell explained is that the USW is
> looking for viable small businesses in appropriate sectors where the current
> owners are interested in cashing out. The union is also searching for
> financial institutions with a focus on productive investment, such as
> cooperative banks and credit unions.
>
>
> "It can get complicated," Witherell continued. "Not only do you have to
> fund the buyout, but you also have to figure out how to lend workers the
> money to buy-in, so they can repay it at a reasonable rate over a period of
> time, and still make a decent living."
>
>
> The core Mondragon model was developed in the 1950s by a Roman Catholic
> priest, Father Jose Maria Arizmendi. It starts with a school, a credit union
> and a shop--all owned by workers who each had an equal share and vote. The
> three-in-one combination allows the cooperative to rely on its own resources
> for finance and training. The worker-owners cannot be fired. In regular
> assemblies, they hire and fire their managers, as well as set the general
> policies and direction of the firm. The workers themselves decide on the
> income spread between the lowest paid worker and the highest paid manager,
> which currently averages about 4.5 to one. (Compared with more than 400 to
> one in the U.S.) As the worker-owners accumulate resources, they can
> encourage the formation of new coops, indirectly through their bank and
> directly through their firms, and bring them into the overall structures of
> MCC governance. This is how they grew from one small shop to 260 enterprises
> in the past 50 years. Finally, if a worker-owner retires, he or she can
> 'cash out,' but the share cannot be sold. It is only available for purchase
> by a new worker-owner at that firm.
>
>
> This last crucial point was developed by Arizmendi during the course of
> deep study of Catholic social theory as well as the works of Karl Marx and
> the English cooperativist Robert Owen. A worker-owner's ability to sell his
> or her share to anyone was a flaw in Owen's approach, Arizmendi decided,
> since it enabled outsiders to buy the more successful coops, turning their
> workers back into wage-labor, while starving the other less successful coops
> of resources. With Arizmendi's new approach, only four out of the several
> hundred MCC coop ventures have failed during the half century since
> Mondragon began.
>
>
> The difference between worker-owned coops Mondragon-style, and ESOPs, or
> Employee Stock Ownership Programs more prevalent in the U.S., has to do with
> legal structure and control. In an ESOP, a portion of the companies stock,
> ranging from a large minority bloc to 100 percent, is owned by workers but
> held in a trust. Its value fluctuates with the stock market and workers can
> get dividends as they are paid, buy more stock, or "cash out" when they
> retire. If they do "cash out," they pay taxes on the closing amount, unless
> they roll it over into an IRA. By and large, ESOPs are financial instruments
> and do not automatically lead to worker control over the workplace or a role
> in shaping the firm's capital strategies. Managers are hired by the firm's
> board of directors, in turn, connected to the trust.
>
>
> "We have lots of experience with ESOPs," said Gerard, "but we have found
> that it doesn't take long for the Wall Street types to push workers aside
> and take back control.  We see Mondragon's cooperative model with 'one
> worker, one vote' ownership as a means to re-empower workers and make
> business accountable to Main Street instead of Wall Street."
> The USW, however, will insist on at least one modification of the Mondragon
> model: the worker-owners will be organized into trade unions, and will sign
> collective bargaining agreements with the management team. This sets up a
> unique situation whereby unionized workers reach an agreement with
> themselves as a workers' assembly and with the management team they hire.
>
>
> This is not as big of a problem as it may sound. "’This is not heaven and
> we are not angels’ is a common phrase heard by visitors to Mondragon," said
> Michael Peck, MCC's North American delegate. Within the structure of each
> MCC enterprise is a 'social committee' of the workers, which looks to their
> broader social concerns. But, it has also come to play the role of settling
> day-to-day disputes with the management team, thus serving as a de facto
> union. Class struggle surely continues, even in a modified form in a worker
> cooperative.
>
>
> There are also other features unique to MCC that may or may not apply to
> its replication in the U.S. Father Arizmendi developed his plan as a
> community-based survival mechanism following the devastation of the Spanish
> Civil War and World War Two. He was imprisoned under Franco. The Basque
> region, a center of anti-Franco resistance, was not only in economic ruin,
> but was also punished by the Franco government by being denied resources.
> MCC evolved through self-reliance.
>
>
> Under Spanish law, because the MCC worker-owners are not technically
> wage-labor, but get their income from a share of the profits, they are
> excluded from much of the country's social welfare safety net pertaining to
> workers. MCC responded by organizing and funding it's own 'second degree'
> cooperatives--health care clinics, retirement plans, schools and other
> social services, all cooperatively owned with their own worker assemblies.
> Much of this integrated second-degree structure may not be required in the
> U.S. Here, it may make more sense for worker-owned enterprises to form local
> or regional collaboratives and stakeholder arrangements with county
> government, credit unions, community colleges and technical high schools,
> and other nonprofit agencies.
>
>
> What's in the partnership for Mondragon? Josu Ugarte, President of
> Mondragron Internacional declared: "What we are announcing today represents
> a historic first--combining the world's largest industrial worker
> cooperative with one of the world's most progressive and forward-thinking
> manufacturing unions to work together so that our combined know-how and
> complimentary visions can transform manufacturing practices in North
> America. We feel inspired to take this step based on our common set of
> values with the Steelworkers who have proved time and again that the future
> belongs to those who connect vision and values to people and put all three
> first."
>
>
> Along with its core values and unique ownership structure, MCC is still a
> business producing goods and providing services in markets, anchored in
> Spain but reaching across the globe. It seeks to sustain itself and grow,
> although it is not driven by the same 'expand or die' compulsion of
> traditional corporate or privately owned firms. Adding more worker-owners
> simply gives each worker a smaller slice of a bigger pie. There's no removed
> batch of nonproducing stockholders raking in superprofits, or trading their
> stock speculatively as it rises or falls.
>
>
> MCC firms still compete with traditional rivals for customers in the
> marketplace, and thus are always seeking a competitive edge. MCC
> enterprises, for example, are mainly known for high quality products. But
> when this is combined with a fact of self-management, that they have far
> fewer supervisory layers on the payroll, the higher quality products hit the
> marketplaces with a lower price. This puts MCC on the leading edge of
> Spain's economy.
>
>
> MCC also looks for other advantages, such as horizontal integration and
> securing competitive sources of supply. This is why it has cautiously been
> expanding abroad, buying up supply firms or other complimentary businesses,
> and seeking to reshape them into the MCC cooperative structure. Often,
> however, they run into difficulties, where another country's laws treat
> cooperatives with disadvantages.
>
>
> That is not the case in the U.S., where even though industrial coops are
> not common, there are few undue restrictions on their formation. "As we look
> for firms to purchase," said Witherell, "MCC is not just interested in
> buying up companies and having the workers as employees. It's the MCC rep
> that's always pushing on how readily we can convert to worker ownership."
>
>
> The Mondragon initiative is not the first innovative project of the
> Steelworkers seeking wider allies. With the encouragement of International
> President Leo Gerard, following on the anti-WTO street battles in Seattle in
> the 1990s, the USW helped found the Blue-Green Alliance together with the
> Sierra Club and other environmentalists.  It has worked closely with Van
> Jones and 'Green for All's jobs initiatives and the union plays a major role
> in the ongoing annual 'Good Jobs, Green Jobs' conferences. Most recently,
> the USW was a major participant in the week-long series of events making the
> oppositional case at the G20 events in Pittsburgh.
>
>
> For Gerard and the USW, these alliances are matters of utmost practicality
> and survival. Gerard points out that 40,000 manufacturing facilities in the
> U.S. have closed since the onset of the 2007 economic crisis, throwing 2
> million people out of work. His answer is structural reform in the economy
> along the lines of a 'green industrial revolution' and to fund it with a tax
> of speculative capital's financial transfers, known as the 'Tobin Tax.'
>
>
> "Americans going green--manufacturing windmills and solar cells--would
> benefit both the economy and environment," said Gerard in a Campaign for
> America's Future article. "As the Wall Street debacle that pushed this
> country into the Great Recession last year showed, the United States cannot
> depend on trading in obscure financial products to support its economy. To
> survive, America must be able to manufacture products of intrinsic value
> that can be traded here and internationally." He often notes that there are
> 200 tons of steel and 8000 moving parts in every large wind turbine--a
> concept that is never lost on the unemployed and under-employed
> manufacturing workers that hear it.
>
>
> The same point is not lost on small and medium-sized businesses looking for
> orders from new endeavors. This is where green entrepreneurs can form
> alliances with worker-owned cooperatives, trade unions, living wage job
> advocates and the global justice movement. The key question is whether the
> political will and organizational skill can be brought together to make it
> all happen in a way that most enhances the strength and livelihood of the
> working class.
>
>
> Here is where the ball returns to the court of left organizers and
> solidarity economy activists. Lending a helping hand to the new initiative
> entails a good deal of investigation into the state of local businesses and
> conditions, plus building alliances, generating publicity, and contributing
> educational work among all those concerned. It’s not crowded, and there’s a
> lot to be done.
>
> *[Carl Davidson writes for Beaver County Blue and SolidarityEconomy.Net.
> He is a national board member of the Solidarity Economy Network and a
> national co-chair of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and
> Socialism. If you like this article, make use of the PayPal button on **
> http://solidarityeconomy.net* <http://solidarityeconomy.net/>* ]*
>
>
> --
> ===============
> Keep On Keepin' On
>
>
> 'If you don't have a strategy, you're part of someone else's strategy.'
> - Alvin Toffler
>
> But to DO strategy, we must must first be organized, so join PDA at
> http://pdamerica.org and/or CCDS at http://cc-ds.org No excuses. If you
> don't like these, organize something better.
>
> 'If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are
> headed.'
> - Chinese proverb
>
> Carl Davidson
>
>
> To join our 'Progressives for Obama' Listserv, Send an email with
> 'Subscribe' in the title to:
>
> mailto:progressivesforobama-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> http://carldavidson.blogspot.com
> http://ussen.org
> http://solidarityeconomy.net
> http://progressivesforobama.net
> http://beavercountyblue.org
>
>
>
> --
> Emily Kawano
> Exec. Dir., Center for Popular Economics &
> Solidarity Economy Network
> 413-545-0743
>
>
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-- 
Nicholas Roberts & Kirstie Stramler

skype permaculturecoop
email permaculturecoop@gmail.com
phone +1 415 670 9710
--

plans http://gaiapermaculture.com
video http://Permaculture.TV
--
http://twitter.com/permaculturetv
http://www.youtube.com/user/permaculturecoop



-- 
Nicholas Roberts & Kirstie Stramler

skype permaculturecoop
email permaculturecoop@gmail.com
phone +1 415 670 9710
--
plans http://gaiapermaculture.com
video http://Permaculture.TV
--
http://twitter.com/permaculturetv
http://www.youtube.com/user/permaculturecoop