The Workers' Paradise

Sorry, folks. I was finishing my final paper for the MMCCU and preparing for a training that I am doing on Wednesday. I didn’t have time to do the regular entry. I will try to get it done tomorrow or Wednesday night.

The Workers’ Paradise has a new contributing author on board. John A. Atherton from the United Kingdom has offered to cross post his blogs from UK Worker Co-operatives on this site to help reach co-operators in the US. We often think of the UK as being the Consumer sector, but they also have a growing worker co-operative movement.

This brings our author group to six (Bernard and Edgar from SF), Matt, Myself and Fred from Madison, and now John from the UK.

Do you have the inspiration, desire, to put your ideas out there? Join the conversation here. Whether it is a simple comment on an existing post or developing your own series, I hope that you will consider sharing with the rest of us. Fred recently started a neat discussion on the idea of neo-syndicalism that may have been lost over the holidays, but it is worthy of a fresh look. If you want to sign up, you can join as a subscriber by yourself. Then send me an email (johnamac<at>me.com) and let me know a bit about you and that you want to write. I maintain a light edit hand (mainly just to format and make sure that tags are in place).

I expect to do some more updating this year. As I noted in the comments on my most recent post, I think that a bibliography of relevant titles might be worthwhile. The US Federation has maintained a reading list at GoodReads, but repetition never hurts.

In any event, welcome John! We look forward to reading about the UK experience!

I am sorry for missing my Monday Morning Post this week. I ran out of time. Fortunately, Fred Schepartz stepped into the void and provide three intriguing posts. I will start up again next Monday with the Identity series and follow that up with a review of 2009 and a plan for 2010.

I do want to take a moment to thank you for reading and spreading the word. At last count, I have readers in over 40 countries. I have enjoyed meeting some of you on Facebook and in person at the conferences!

John

I started this blog in 2006. My hope was to start a national discussion on the worker cooperative movement. The US Federation had just come into existence and was gearing up for the New York meeting to elect the permanent board of directors. The midwest coops (and Madison in particular) were starting to stir and wake. It seemed like a good time to try to broaden our debates beyond the workercoop listserv.

Over that time, some have piped in and made comments on posts–I started my journey through St. Mary’s and made the Hadj to the Mondragon Experience. I have tried to chronicle my journey and bring issues that I see every day as a cooperator to the fore. In that time, I had no real idea of how many readers were out there. With the exception of a few comments (and people at conferences introducing themselves as a reader) it has often seemed like a way for me to get thoughts out of my head rather than a discussion. I finally took the plunge and moved the blog from the diary like Livejournal to my own web site. This has allowed me to “see” who is reading and much, much more.

Calling All Writers!

Starting today, I am asking people interested in writing about worker coops to join me. If you scroll down the right hand column, you will see a link to register. simply sign up and you will be a “subscriber” then send me an email and ask to be an author.

Here is all that I ask:

• No personal attacks on individuals or attacks on specific coops (if their is an ethical issue, please disguise the coop or people involved and make it hypothetical). You can, however, criticize public figures such as elected politicians.
• Keep the subject and body related to workplace democracy, worker cooperatives, collectives and participatory democratic workplaces.
• Be willing to respond to comments posted on the site (especially if it is your article mentioned in the comment).

Bernard has already signed on. I hope that we can get a few others. You can post daily if you would like or just once or twice a year. I hope that we can take this to a new level and develop a great place for worker cooperators to discuss the issues facing our cooperatives and our movement.

The Identity Statement Series

Sometimes, I realize, I go too long between posts. I am going to try to change that. Starting August 31, I am beginning a series of posts. The first series will be on the Cooperative Identity. Each Monday, I will a discussion about the values, ethics and principles of the cooperative Identity. It will start with the definition and conclude with proposals for additions and changes to the Identity statement. I will incorporate the USDA “user principles” as well as Mondragon’s principles (the three principles in addition to the ICA’s identity will receive their own post).

I expect this to be a 20-22 week series. Each discussion will include a brief history of the development of that part of the identity (the first will be a general discussion of why we have an identity statement). I will also discuss the debate over the different parts and then how it relates to worker cooperatives, collectives, and democratic LLCs.

I hope you join me in this series. After this one is done, I will come up with a series on Human Resources in worker coops. If you would like to send ideas for other series, drop me a line. If you want to write a series, sign-up and drop me a note.