Workers' control

La prevención de riesgos laborales en las pequeñas y medianas empresas españolas

by Claudia Narocki

From Workers' Self-Management to State Bureaucratic Control: Autogestion in Algeria

by Samuel Southgate

Chapter in Dario Azzellini and Immanuel Ness eds. 2011. Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present. Haymarket Books: Chicago. pp. 228-247

Studies of Learning and Work: Job Control, Participation in Learning and Underemployment (Doctoral Thesis)

by Johanna Weststar

Attitudes and Opinions of Agricultural Growers in Texas Regarding Guest Worker Policy

by Texas State PA Applied Research Projects

Shepherd, Josh R., "Attitudes and Opinions of Agricultural Growers in Texas Regarding Guest Worker Policy" (2007). Applied Research Projects, Texas State University-San Marcos. Paper 261.
http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/261

Purpose: This purpose of this research is to describe the attitudes and opinions of agricultural growers in Texas... more Purpose: This purpose of this research is to describe the attitudes and opinions of agricultural growers in Texas regarding guest worker policy. This research should give policy makers a better understanding of guest worker policy issues. In addition, it provides agricultural growers (key stakeholders in the process) opinions about what guest worker policy should look like, and what elements it should contain. The eighteen elements of guest worker policy identified in the scholarly literature were organized into six categories that include the hiring process, labor standards, enforcement, legal status, border security, and possible outcomes.

Methods: To satisfy the research purpose, this paper used survey research. The elements identified in the scholarly literature were used to develop a framework that served as the basis for the survey instrument. Two hundred and forty-two agricultural growers throughout the state of Texas had the survey administered to them electronically. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the results.

Findings: The results of this survey show that growers overwhelmingly support the idea of a guest worker in the United States program. In addition, most respondents supported shifting as many financial burdens away from growers as possible. For example, a majority of respondents favored guest workers paying for their own transportation and housing, and a majority of respondents opposed employers paying bonds to ensure guest workers returned to their home countries. Survey results also revealed that respondents do not believe there should be a limit on the number of guest workers brought into the United States each year nor do they believe employers should have to guarantee guest workers a minimum number of hours of work. Likewise, a majority of respondents do not believe guest worker policy should allow the spouses and children of guest workers to travel with them into the United States, nor do they believe guest worker families should be able to expedite their legalization process. In addition, 70% of respondents indicated that guest worker policy should allow illegal aliens current residing in the United States to be eligible to become guest workers without any legal reprisals. Finally, survey respondents overwhelmingly rejected the idea that implementing a guest worker program would depress the wages of U.S. workers, increase illegal immigration, lead to discrimination and exploitation of guest workers, or create an over reliance on foreign labor by employers.

Worker-Recovered Enterprises as Workers' Cooperatives: The Conjunctures, Challenges, and Innovations of Self-Management in Argentina

by Marcelo Vieta

Co-authored with Andrés Ruggeri. (2007). In Darryl Reed & JJ McMurtry (Eds.), Co-operatives in a Global Economy: The Challenges and Innovations of Co-operation Across Borders (pp. 178-225). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

This chapter examines this phenomenon of ERTs in Latin American countries, with a special emphasis on the case of... more This chapter examines this phenomenon of ERTs in Latin American countries, with a special emphasis on the case of Argentina. Based on our ongoing quantitative and qualitative political economic and ethnographic work over the past five years with over 70 ERTs across all economic sectors and regions, we highlight two particular characteristics that are often overlooked or downplayed by studies that examine worker-recovered enterprises in Argentina. First, workers’ initial actions involving the seizure of control of their deteriorating or failed companies from former owners, their occupation of them for weeks or months, and eventually their putting them into operation once again under autogestión (self-management), arise out of fear and anger rather than a preconceived predilection for workers’ control or working-class revolt. That is, most ERTs originate as direct responses to their worker-protagonists’ deep worries about becoming structurally unemployed. To begin to understand these two characteristics, we first briefly look to the historical and political conjunctures from which ERTs emerge and in which they find themselves. We then explore some of the distinguishing features of Argentina’s ERTs as workers’ co-operatives. To illustrate how these features play out in practice, we map out some of the innovations impelled by ERT workers’ desire to self-manage that they adopt in order to defend their jobs and workspaces, as well as several of the challenges faced by these experiments in self-management. Lastly, we examine some of the connections with the wider ERT phenomenon in South America. As we emphasize throughout, ERT’s innovations and challenges shape their very organizational structures and co-operative practices and in some ways distinguish them from other workers’ co-operatives in other conjunctures.

Autogestión and the Worker-Recuperated Enterprises in Argentina: The Potential for Reconstituting Work and Recomposing Life

by Marcelo Vieta

Paper presented at the 2008 Anarchist Studies Network conference, "Re-imagining Revolution," in the panel: “‘¡Autogestión ya!’ The promises and challenges of self-management in Argentina’s worker-recuperated enterprises,” Saturday, Sept. 6, 2008.

The Argentine worker-recuperated enterprises (empresas recuperdas por sus trabajadores, or ERT) are direct, diverse,... more The Argentine worker-recuperated enterprises (empresas recuperdas por sus trabajadores, or ERT) are direct, diverse, and mostly non-union aligned responses by roughly 10,000 urban-based workers to recent socio-economic crises. Over ten years since the first workplace occupations and their recoveries as self-managed workers' cooperatives, this latest wave of workers’ struggle in Argentina has shown promising alternatives to capital-labour relations and the neoliberal enclosures of life.

But why were almost 200 failing, closed, or bankrupted small- and medium-sized businesses spanning the entire urban economic base subsequently occupied and reopened as self-managed workplaces by former employees in Argentina since at least 1997? Why do most ERTs decide to reorganize themselves as workers’ cooperatives? Why do many of them also decide to open up the shop floor to the diverse communities surrounding them, symbolically and practically tearing down factory walls by sharing their workplaces with community centres and dining halls, free clinics, popular education programmes, alternative radio and media centres, and art studios? Finally, why Argentina?

To begin to answer these questions, I first explore some of Argentina’s key socio-economic and historical conjunctures motivating workspace occupations and the formation of self-managed workers’ cooperatives. Second, I begin to theorize the concept of autogestión (self-management) as it tends to be practiced by Argentina’s ERTs. Third, I sketch out some of the ERTs’ most common micro-economic and organizational successes and challenges, exploring how the struggle to reconstitute a once capitalist workplace as a self-managed workers’ coop interplays with an ERT’s reconstituted labour processes. I conclude by appraising the future possibilities of ERTs for social transformation in Argentina by mapping out four “social innovations” being spearheaded by the phenomenon.

The Social Innovations of Autogestión in Argentina’s Worker-Recuperated Enterprises: Cooperatively Reorganizing Productive Life in Hard Times

by Marcelo Vieta

(2010, September). Labor Studies Journal, 35(3), pp. 295-321.

Argentina’s worker-recuperated enterprises (empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores [ERTs]) have shown to be... more Argentina’s worker-recuperated enterprises (empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores [ERTs]) have shown to be promising grassroots solutions by workers to the sociopolitical and socioeconomic crises that resulted from the country’s collapsing neoliberal model at the turn of the millennium. The author first explores the historical conjuncture in which ERTs emerged. Second, the author theoretically situates ERTs’ practices of autogestión (self-management) and workers’ cooperativism. Third, he sketches out their most common microeconomic and organizational challenges. Last, the author maps out four “social innovations” being spearheaded by ERTs, appraising the social and economic transformations that these innovations prefigure, especially during hard economic times.

The 'New Cooperativism' in Latin America: Worker-Recuperated Enterprises and Socialist Production Units

by Marcelo Vieta

Co-authored with Manuel Larrabure & Daniel Schugurensky. (2011, Autumn). In a special issue of Studies in the Education of Adults entitled "Social Movement Learning: A Contemporary Re-examination," 43(2), pp. 181-196.

In the first decade of the 21st century, efforts to create alternatives to neoliberalism emerged in many parts of... more In the first decade of the 21st century, efforts to create alternatives to neoliberalism emerged in many parts of Latin America. Social movements across the region took to the streets, occupied abandoned factories, and started to create new democratic spaces, solidarity networks, and social economy initiatives. In one country after another, progressive governments began to take office, promising a break from the past. It was in this context that the new cooperativism emerged in Latin America. In contrast to traditional cooperativism in the region, this new movement emerged as a direct response by workers and communities to the economic and political crisis of the late 1990s, displays stronger horizontal organisation and democratic values, and has deeper connections to surrounding communities. In this paper, we present two case studies that exemplify this new cooperativism: Venezuela's Socialist Production Units and Argentina's Worker-Recuperated Enterprises. Using the framework of social movement learning, we argue that in both these cases participants learn new values and practices, and collectively create prefigurative knowledge that anticipate post-capitalist social relations. This is done through a variety of everyday activities, and in particular, through democratic participation in self-governance. However, this new cooperativism faces important challenges from both the state and market forces, suggesting that their autonomy is subjected to shifting and contested dynamics.

Worker Co-operatives and Employment Law in Canada

by John McNamara

Funding for the research and drafting of this paper was generously provided by the Social Economy and Sustainability Research Network, Atlantic Node. The Advisory Committee for the project was: Hazel Corcoran (Executive Director, CWCF), Larry Haiven (Dept. of Management, St. Mary‟s University) and Peter Hough (Financial Officer, CWCF).

Worker co-operatives occupy a unique place in the economy and employment law. The employees of the organization also... more Worker co-operatives occupy a unique place in the economy and employment law. The employees of the organization also control the organization as owners. As a result, the workers set the rules, which they must follow. Organizationally, the government sees these co-operatives as employers and treats them as any other employer. It may be a sentiment of members in a worker co-operative that they should be able to do what they want since they are both employer and employee, but the state has different considerations. Worker co-operatives must act within the law. Among other things, this means determining if there is an employer-employee relationship. If there is such a relationship, then the co-operative must also abide by employment standards. Even if there is not, the co-operative must still comply with other legislation including human rights, occupational safety and health, and workers‟ compensation.
This paper will examine the relationship between worker co-operatives and employment law in Canada. It will consider the definition of an employee, the rights of members, the rights of employers, the method of proper termination and the role of labour unions. It will provide recommendations for worker co-operatives to consider as they navigate the legislation in order to create a strong co-operative and a workplace beneficial to its membership.

Work, Inc.: A Philosophical Inquiry

by Edmund Byrne

This is a book, published 1989 by Temple University Press.

ECONOMÍA SOLIDARIA, FORMAS DE PROPIEDAD COLECTIVA, NACIONALIZACIONES, EMPRESAS SOCIALISTAS, CO-Y AUTOGESTIÓN EN VENEZUELA

by Dario Azzellini