It's Not Working: Steeltown USA and Worker Ownership

In the late 1970s American manufacturing was in extreme difficulty. The Carter administration turned to a series of radical (for the American government) new inititatives including letting workers buy their workplaces when the owners wanted to pull out.

Submitted by Reddebrek on October 15, 2019

Link https://youtu.be/ve359Y7AvJk

This film discusses alternatives to plant shutdowns such as locally-based cooperative enterprises engaged in joint production strategies which would make their reopened plants economically feasible. Centers on plant closings in Youngstown, Ohio

Archive link https://archive.org/details/itsnotworking

Comments

Reddebrek

4 years 5 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Reddebrek on October 15, 2019

I found this doc to be an interesting look at one of the responses to capital flight and the possibilities and limitations of it as well as conditions during the beginning of the global economic restructuring of the 70s and 80s.

But I'm adding it to the library because I've noticed that this measure or measures like it are again being promoted by some social democratic politicians like Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. It seems this has moved from historic interest to potential reality again.

In addition to experiment with employee ownership Carters desire to end the malaise led him to embrace class collaboration via the Labor Management Group, an alliance of Union leaders and company executives. That didn't work out so well either, https://libcom.org/library/douglas-frasers-resignation-letter-labor-management-group

New Syndicalist also had a very interesting discussion on employee ownership models and their limitations. https://newsyndicalist.org/2018/08/27/talking-shop-3-ownership/