CO-OPS SPREADING in USA

Worker-Owners of America, Unite!

THE Occupy Wall Street protests have come and mostly gone, and whether they continue to have an impact or not, they have brought an astounding fact to the public’s attention: a mere 1 percent of Americans own just under half of the country’s financial assets and other investments. America, it would seem, is less equitable than ever, thanks to our no-holds-barred capitalist system.

But at another level, something different has been quietly brewing in recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops, worker-owned companies and other alternatives to the traditional capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system, something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism, without anyone even noticing.

Some 130 million Americans, for example, now participate in the ownership of co-op businesses and credit unions. More than 13 million Americans have become worker-owners of more than 11,000 employee-owned companies, six million more than belong to private-sector unions.

And worker-owned companies make a difference. In Cleveland, for instance, an integrated group of worker-owned companies, supported in part by the purchasing power of large hospitals and universities, has taken the lead in local solar-panel installation, “green” institutional laundry services and a commercial hydroponic greenhouse capable of producing more than three million heads of lettuce a year.

Local and state governments are likewise changing the nature of American capitalism. Almost half the states manage venture capital efforts, taking partial ownership in new businesses. Calpers, California’s public pension authority, helps finance local development projects; in Alaska, state oil revenues provide each resident with dividends from public investment strategies as a matter of right; in Alabama, public pension investing has long focused on state economic development.

Moreover, this year some 14 states began to consider legislation to create public Banks similar to the longstanding Bank of North Dakota; 15 more began to consider some form of single-payer or public-option health care plan.

Some of these developments, like rural co-ops and credit unions, have their origins in the New Deal era; some go back even further, to the Grange movement of the 1880s. The most widespread form of worker ownership stems from 1970s legislation that provided tax benefits to owners of small businesses who sold to their employees when they retired. Reagan-era domestic-spending cuts spurred nonprofits to form social enterprises that used profits to help finance their missions.

Recently, growing economic pain has provided a further catalyst. The Cleveland cooperatives are an answer to urban decay that traditional job training, small-business and other development strategies simply do not touch. They also build on a 30-year history of Ohio employee-ownership experiments traceable to the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970s and ’80s.

Further policy changes are likely. In Indiana, the Republican state treasurer, Richard Mourdock, is using state deposits to lower interest costs to employee-owned companies, a precedent others states could easily follow. Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, is developing legislation to support worker-owned strategies like that of Cleveland in other cities. And several policy analysts have proposed expanding existing government “set aside” procurement programs for small businesses to include co-ops and other democratized enterprises.

If such cooperative efforts continue to increase in number, scale and sophistication, they may suggest the outlines, however tentative, of something very different from both traditional, corporate-dominated capitalism and traditional socialism.

It’s easy to overestimate the possibilities of a new system. These efforts are minor compared with the power of Wall Street banks and the other giants of the American economy. On the other hand, it is precisely these institutions that have created enormous economic problems and fueled public anger.

During the Populist and Progressive eras, a decades-long buildup of public anger led to major policy shifts, many of which simply took existing ideas from local and state efforts to the national stage. Furthermore, we have already seen how, in moments of crisis, the nationalization of auto giants like General Motors and Chrysler can suddenly become a reality. When the next financial breakdown occurs, huge injections of public money may well lead to de facto takeovers of major banks.

And while the American public has long supported the capitalist model, that, too, may be changing. In 2009 a Rasmussen poll reported that Americans under 30 years old were “essentially evenly divided” as to whether they preferred “capitalism” or “socialism.”

A long era of economic stagnation could well lead to a profound national debate about an America that is dominated neither by giant corporations nor by socialist bureaucrats. It would be a fitting next direction for a troubled nation that has long styled itself as of, by and for the people.

By GAR ALPEROVITZ
Gar Alperovitz, a professor of political economy at the University of Maryland and a founder of the Democracy Collaborative, is the author of “America Beyond Capitalism.”

Oakland OWS Port Action Dec. 12th, 2011

Occupy Members Swarm Oakland Port
"I am getting tired of seeing my neighbors getting hurt and I am fighting the good fight." Says UPWA Leader Charles Smith

(12-12) 11:58 PST OAKLAND -- Almost half the berths at the Port of Oakland have temporarily ceased operations today after hundreds of protesters spent the morning blocking intersections in the port.

Roughly 150 longshoremen on the dayshift were sent home with little to no pay after they were either unable to get to work or the big rigs used to haul containers couldn't reach the berths, said Craig Merrilees, spokesman for the International Longshore Worker's Union (ILWU). Fifty longshoremen are still working today, Merrilees said.

The employees were sent home after the companies that own the different berths in the port decided to shut down and send workers home. "There have been disruptions, there have been distractions, but we are not shut down," said Isaac Kos-Read, spokesman for the port.

The next shift of workers is expected to start later this afternoon and demonstrators have pledged to again disrupt operations.
"We have a lot to be proud of today," said Clarence Thomas, a Longshoreman after getting the text alert from protest organizers saying they had successfully closed the port and were pulling out. Thomas said he supported the movement.

"We're very very happy," added Judy Greenspan, 59, a public school teacher in Richmond. "Despite all the premonitions of violence, this has been peaceful throughout. I hope we can redouble our efforts again this afternoon."

The group of protesters succeeded in stopping a line of big-rigs from entering the Port of Oakland for nearly five hours this morning during their march to shut down the busy cargo terminal.

Organizers have pledged to march to the port and shut down the terminal, one of the busiest on the West Coast. Some unions, including the one representing Oakland teachers, are supporting the day-long strike while others, like the Longshoremen's union, say shutting down the port will harm hard-working stevedores and truck drivers.

Carrying signs saying "Shutdown Wall St. on the Waterfront" about 200 protesters marched the three blocks from the West Oakland BART Station to the port entrances before sunrise today.

The group marchers were met by a line of police officers in riot gear near the intersection of Seventh Street and Middle Harbor Road. Protesters began marching in a circle, preventing trucks from getting through. At least one demonstrator set up a tent in the intersection.

Around 8:45 a.m. two lines of 50 police officers in riot gear marched toward the group and formed a line on one side of the group for 15 minutes. About 25 officers then walked away, seeming to suggest the standoff would continue into the late morning.

Before dawn, one trucker, clearly frustrated, blew his air horn and tried to drive through the crowd.

Some Longshoremen scheduled to begin work at 8 a.m. decided they didn't want to cross a picket line and went home. Others, though, said they needed the money.

"I am here because I am a union member. Unions have been decimated," Charles Smith, 68, a retired wastewater treatment plant worker said as he trudged to the port. "I am getting tired of seeing my neighbors getting hurt and I am fighting the good fight."

Demonstrators are trying to close ports up and down the West Coast. "It's necessary. It is a way to strike back, to show our numbers and show what the people can do," said William Lovell, 44, who said he participated in the now-dismantled Occupy SF camp. "We are politely breaking the rules as gently as we can."

At a news conference this morning, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said while she agrees with the concerns of the Occupy movement in general, she did not want to see the port closed.

"We're working hard today to keep the port operations going with minimal disruption," Quan said. "We urge the demonstrators who are coming to the port to respect the rights of the 99 percent who are trying to work today and to keep their protest peaceful. So far, it seems to be going well and operations are minimally disrupted. We hope that this will continue for the day."

Dan Siegel, Quan's legal adviser who quit when she supported a raid of the downtown Occupy camp, spent the morning at the protest. He said the mood was almost "festive."
"It started out kind of tense, there were a lot of threats from police and politicians," he said. "I think ultimately we had large enough numbers (that) police decided to pull back and allow us to picket."

Chronicle staff writers Will Kane and Henry K. Lee contributed to this report.
Edited and emphasis by Bloggger

1% Attack on Labor Unions (via NLRB)

The GOP’s war on Labor Unions

The Republican war on unions continues apace. On a near-party-line vote Wednesday, the House passed a bill crafted to thwart a National Labor Relations Board decision, made earlier Wednesday, that would entitle workers to a timely vote on unionization once they’ve petitioned for it. By ruling that employers’ legal challenges can be entertained only after a vote, the board effectively denied employers the ability to hold up a vote for weeks, months or even years. Elections delayed, the NLRB essentially said, are elections denied.

The House legislation, by contrast, stipulated that such legal challenges can go forward before the vote. The bill will almost surely go nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but then, it’s just one foray in the Republicans’ battle to extirpate worker-controlled organizations in America.

E.J. Dionne Jr.
A New Square Deal

In the run-up to Wednesday’s NLRB vote, there was considerable doubt as to whether a vote could even be held. The five-seat board is down to three members. Republicans have vowed not to confirm any more of President Obama’s appointees, and the Supreme Court ruled last year that if the board’s membership fell to just two, it would no longer have the power to issue rulings. In recent weeks a number of Republicans have urged the board’s remaining GOP member, Brian Hayes, to resign, stripping the board of its rule-setting ability. After NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce scaled back the proposed reform, Hayes decided to stay on, though he did vote against Pearce’s modified proposal.

Also Wednesday, one ostensible casus belli for the GOP war on the board was removed when Boeing and the Machinists Union agreed on a new contract, under which the company committed to expand production at its unionized Washington-state factories. In return, the union agreed to drop its complaint to the NLRB against Boeing’s new factory in non-union South Carolina. When the NLRB’s general counsel took up the case, Republicans pounced: The board, they said, was threatening to kill jobs. This week, the general counsel indicated that if the machinists dropped the case, so would he.

But that won’t stop the GOP’s jihad. The term of NLRB member Craig Becker expires this month, which will winnow board membership down to a powerless two. GOP legislators won’t confirm more members as long as Obama is president, nor will they permit a congressional recess during which Obama could make recess appointments. Throughout 2012, then, the organization that governs labor relations in the United States will govern no more: Lower-level labor-board judges can issue rulings, but the board to which such rulings can be appealed will be MIA. Labor disputes will enter a terra incognita: Can they be heard by a court absent a board ruling? Can employers or unions willfully violate labor law with the assurance that the referees are no longer on the field? Conundrums loom.

Some might reasonably wonder why the GOP war persists when union power has already been so greatly reduced. In the mid-20th century, 40 percent of private-sector workers belonged to unions; today, just 7 percent do. But the Republican struggle continues for two reasons. When it comes to elections, unions are still the most potent mobilizers of the Democratic vote — getting minorities to the polls and persuading members of the white working class to vote Democratic. Indeed, Republican gains among working-class whites (whom they carried by an unprecedented 63 percent to 33 percent in 2010) are, above all, the result of the deunionization of that class. An analysis of exit polling over the past 30 years shows that unionized white working-class men vote Democratic at a rate 20 percent higher than their non-union counterparts. For political reasons, Republicans are determined to de-unionize workers even more.

There’s another reason, too. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that in the third quarter, wages as a share of gross domestic product were the lowest they’ve been since 1929, and compensation (that includes health insurance) as a share of GDP was at its lowest point since 1955. Corporate profits as a share of GDP, by contrast, are the highest they’ve been since 1929. The destruction of private-sector unions has redistributed income to the rich, which is the Republican Party’s raison d’etre.

Which is why the Republican war on unions — which is also the Republican war on the 99 percent — rolls on.

meyersonh@washpost.com