Tag Archives: feature

Event: Solidarity Economies & Worker Coops (12/4)

December 4, 8:30 -10:30am
The Murphy Institute
25 W. 43 Street, 18 Floor

The local movement of worker cooperatives, supported by the City Council, has increasingly caught the imagination of workers and organizers.  What is the potential and what are the limitations of worker co-ops in building a movement for economic and social justice? To what extent does the co-op model enable working people to create secure jobs with decent pay and dignity, and, in doing so, begin to envision a new economy?  What is the nature of organized labor’s role in this new movement?

Speakers:

  • Amy B Dean, Editorial Board Member, New Labor Forum; Fellow, The Century Foundation; Co-author, A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement
  • Roger Green, Director, Dubois-Bunche Center on Public Policy, Medgar Evers College; collaborating on a conversion of hospitals to cooperative ownership models
  • Adria Powell, Executive Vice President, Cooperative Home Care Associates
  • Melissa Risser, Attorney, Urban Justice Center’s Community Development Project; co-founder of 1worker1vote.org

Graduate Class: Climate Crisis and the Labor Movement

The Labor Studies Program invites all union members, activists, and CUNY & non‐CUNY graduate-level students to enroll in our special topics graduate class:

CLIMATE CRISIS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT:
Trade Unions and Social Movement Approaches to Climate Change and Ecological Degradation

Taught by Sean Sweeney
Thursdays, January 28th to May 12th, 2016 @ 6:15-8:45pm

The emergence of alarming scientific data on climate change, pollution and ecological degradation has triggered a rising wave of activism and organizing around environmental issues. The scientific reality has forced labor and other social movements to debate and propose solutions to what amounts to a civilizational crisis.

How can the labor movement and others best respond to this crisis?  What does the Paris Agreement mean for both workers and the environment?  This class is designed to give students a foundation in the scientific, social, and political aspects of the looming crisis so that they can more effectively engage their unions, movement activism, and scholarship in efforts to protect the environment and our future. Continue reading Graduate Class: Climate Crisis and the Labor Movement

What is Worker Cooperative Development?

Want more on worker cooperatives, solidarity economies, and the role of organized labor? Join us at the Murphy Institute on December 4th for our upcoming Labor Breakfast Forum, Solidarity Economies: Worker Coops.

This article originally appeared at Grassroots Economic Organizing.

By Christopher Michael

In the 1980s, the British government supported a comprehensive system of local worker cooperative support organizations (CSOs). The first CSO was formed in Scotland in 1976. By 1986, approximately 100 CSOs spotted the country — with higher concentrations in urban areas. About 80 of these CSOs were funded — mostly by local municipalities — with full-time staff at an average of three employees. In tandem, Parliament chartered a national “Co-operative Development Agency” with a 1978 bill — which aided the growth of local CSOs, served as a “safety net” for regions without CSOs, collected statistics, and acted as government liaison with regard to new legislation.

These government-funded support organizations engaged primarily with low-income, ethnic minority, and female entrepreneurs. CSO staff members provided training courses on worker cooperatives, direct technical assistance, and also loan financing at an average of $50,000 (current U.S. dollars) per worker cooperative. This ten-year experiment produced approximately 2,000 new worker cooperatives — and almost none exist today. Continue reading What is Worker Cooperative Development?

Raise the Age!

By Ken Francis

It’s October, and a group of students are lined up against a fence outside their school, bundled up against the unexpected frost. Hoodies are pulled taut, hands are gloved and beanies with bright pom-poms are pulled low. These students, aged 10 through 15, are waiting to shake their principal’s hand before they enter the school building. Afterward, they’ll bound into the building and bounce against each other like so many marbles in a bowl. They are disorderly, they are playful, they are children. Or are they?

How much will any of them mature in the next year? At 16, could they appropriately be considered adults? And, if one of them makes a mistake and commits a crime, should s/he be prosecuted as an adult? Continue reading Raise the Age!

Irene Garcia on Civil Disobedience, Arrest & Union Solidarity

All photos by Dave Sanders and Erik McGregor via PSC-CUNY Facebook page.

Two weeks ago, PSC-CUNY members demonstrated in response to 6 years without a contract at CUNY Central Administrative offices, where about 50 people were arrested. Four Murphy Institute community members were arrested in the action. Irene Garcia, Academic Advisor for the Labor Studies Master of Arts program at the Murphy Institute, answers questions about her experience. 

Q. Why did you participate in yesterday’s CD action?

 A. Although all CUNY employees have worthy demands, the biggest motivation for me to participate in the civil disobedience action was to state my discontent with the unfair wages and job security situation that adjunct professors face. As someone who deeply cares about public higher education as the only option for lifting people out of poverty, it is unacceptable to me that thousands of highly educated and caring professionals who teach our low-income students are in poverty themselves! 

Q. What was most striking about the experience?

A. That the policemen were very supportive, to the point of cheering, and expressing that we should continue the fight for all. They are also renegotiating their contract.11028013_882735341780719_3145017127581093257_o

Q. How did you experience the PSC and CUNY community’s support (e.g. students, other unions)?

A. Everybody was really supportive! I really felt the power of the Union. I knew people were going to be out there, since we are very committed people, but it did take me by surprise receiving thank you emails from colleagues. Continue reading Irene Garcia on Civil Disobedience, Arrest & Union Solidarity

Can the Bay Area Tech Economy Embrace Equity Before It’s Too Late?

Featured photo credit: SEIU-USWW

By Chris Schildt, PolicyLink

This post originally appeared at New Economy Week 2015: From Austerity to Prosperity.

Uber recently purchased one of the largest office spaces in downtown Oakland, California, with plans to move3,000 of its workers there by 2017. For a city facing a housing crisis and rapid displacement of Black families and low-income communities, many fear this act will accelerate gentrification pressures. It has also led to some cautious optimism for an opportunity to make Oakland a leader in what Mayor Libby Schaaf has called techquity: “fostering our local technology sector’s growth so it leads to shared prosperity.”

Tech companies can play a role in advancing an equitable economy, but they will first have to confront a deeply inequitable status quo. The San Francisco Bay Area has one of the highest levels of inequality of any region in the country, and it is growing at an alarming pace. Unequal access to business and job opportunities have deepened racial economic gaps – Black and Latino workers earn a median wage that is $10 an hour less than White workers in the Bay Area, and these racial inequities exist across all education levels. The tech-driven “innovation economy” can reverse these trends. But to understand how, it’s important to examine how the innovation economy works. Continue reading Can the Bay Area Tech Economy Embrace Equity Before It’s Too Late?