Worker Co-Ops, how workers take back this country

[VivaRevolution]

I believe that worker co-ops are the solution to the fundamental flaw of communism and socialism. This flaw is in creating a centralized authority, that would be corrupted, and infaltrated.

Worker co-ops are the solution.

Here is my purposal. With our political revolution, we force our government to pass a law, giving the workers of every publicly traded corporation, the right to form a board that would replace the current board of the corporation, with a mandate to allocate profits to fund operations, and take all other profits to buy back the stock from the stockholders. Once all stock is bought back, all profits are paid out in a profit sharing system, ending the wage system across much of corporate America.

What say you war room?

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

Doesn't Germany do something in the realms of this.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Doesn't Germany do something in the realms of this.

I know that most European trade unions have a seat at the board, not sure about actual worker co-ops.

The best example of functioning worker co-ops I have seen were south American mining companies.

 

[VivaRevolution]

I will add that this ties into all the rise of the machine threads as well. Worker co-ops are a check against a new feudal system coming about.

I would actually argue it is a conservative philosophy in the sense that it would be decentralized power.

CEO's and boards run corporate america, not stockholders. This would be putting that power into more people's hands, instead of a few.

 

[Lustercross]

First we need the old people to die off. They keep setting America back with their ancient beliefs.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Why dont they form a union instead, or just pool their money and start their own business?

 

[VivaRevolution]

Why dont they form a union instead, or just pool their money and start their own business?

Because one of the many problems this approach is attempting to address, is corporate power being independent of the people.

This is also an attempt to address wealth inequality, while not using a tax. Public owned corporations offer this unique opportunity to put wealth generated by our largest institutions into the hands of workers.

 

[SODACKER]

This seems incredibly impractical. You want the government to force owners to sell their company to the workers they hired? What effect do you see this having to the Stock market and people's 401k's and do you see new companies coming out purely from workers getting together and coopin?

 

[VivaRevolution]

This seems incredibly impractical. You want the government to force owners to sell their company to the workers they hired? What effect do you see this having to the Stock market and people's 401k's and do you see new companies coming out purely from workers getting together and coopin?

Not owners but stockholders, yes.

The effect on stockholders would be real, there would be less opportunity there. 83% of stock market gains go to the top 1%. I openly admit that one of the goals of this is to address wealth inequality.

 

[VivaRevolution]

bump, created late Sunday night.

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

First we need the old people to die off. They keep setting America back with their ancient beliefs.

As a committed socialist, I'm sure you'd prefer to speed up the process, amirite? Socialists love purges and hate social parasites.

 

[Dirt Road Soldier]

Why dont they form a union instead?

Because unions in the US have this amazing habit of being either corrupt, spineless, all around useless, or some bastardized combination of the three. Some of them operate pretty much in direct opposite of benefiting the workers, and will sell them out to the company to ensure their union dues keep rolling into the bank. And some of them will gladly burn a company to the ground rather than give an inch in contract negotiations.

Granted, not all unions are bad. There are a few good ones out there, but your average union isn't all its cracked up to be despite what liberals like to say.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Because unions in the US have this amazing habit of being either corrupt, spineless, all around useless, or some bastardized combination of the three. Some of them operate pretty much in direct opposite of benefiting the workers, and will sell them out to the company to ensure their union dues keep rolling into the bank. And some of them will gladly burn a company to the ground rather than give an inch in contract negotiations.

Granted, not all unions are bad. There are a few good ones out there, but your average union isn't all its cracked up to be despite what liberals like to say.

It's the same thing as our voting electorate. It fails because we fail as a constituency.

But without a doubt, I agree that they are structurally flawed.

 

[Lustercross]

As a committed socialist, I'm sure you'd prefer to speed up the process, amirite? Socialists love purges and hate social parasites.

How old are you???

 

[Lee978]

Not owners but stockholders, yes.

Stockholders' are owners.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Stockholders' are owners.

Owners of stock, I agree.

Owners of the corporations, I disagree.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Because unions in the US have this amazing habit of being either corrupt, spineless, all around useless, or some bastardized combination of the three. Some of them operate pretty much in direct opposite of benefiting the workers, and will sell them out to the company to ensure their union dues keep rolling into the bank. And some of them will gladly burn a company to the ground rather than give an inch in contract negotiations.

Granted, not all unions are bad. There are a few good ones out there, but your average union isn't all its cracked up to be despite what liberals like to say.

But that is just because of the people in it. There is nothing wrong with the concept. In fact, the concept is very good. If only people did not twist it around.

 

[Snackbar]

What about the 90% or so of workers who are employed by private small businesses? Should your law force their employer to share ownership?

 

[Denter]

Isn't this basically syndicalism

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Because unions in the US have this amazing habit of being either corrupt, spineless, all around useless, or some bastardized combination of the three. Some of them operate pretty much in direct opposite of benefiting the workers, and will sell them out to the company to ensure their union dues keep rolling into the bank. And some of them will gladly burn a company to the ground rather than give an inch in contract negotiations.

Granted, not all unions are bad. There are a few good ones out there, but your average union isn't all its cracked up to be despite what liberals like to say.

Two things-

1) Unions in the US are especially hierarchical and un-democratic. Average members have little say so the higher ups make all decisions. Anecdotal evidence: I "like" two different SEIU pages on FB. They're a huge union and they recently endorsed Hillary. Well, in every single post they've made supporting her, there is huge outrage in the comments section because most preferred Bernie. This happens every single day in every post.

My feeling is that if they would have held internal elections to see who to support, Bernie would have come out ahead and there'd be less outrage. But the SEIU isn't very democratic so that's a no-go. Many unions in other parts of the world are much more democratic and representative of their members' views.

2) Unions are still part of the capitalist system where they simply rent their labor to the owners so they may or may not be terribly concerned with the fate of their company. By comparison, in a co-op, the workers ARE the owners so they're much more likely to be concerned with their company's success.

Mondragon is probably the best example of modern, large-scale co-ops today:

Mondragon: Spain's giant co-operative where times are hard but few go bust

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/07/mondragon-spains-giant-cooperative