At 14:32 03/05/2005, Jim Devine wrote:
great report!
Are people conscious of the problem of co-management being instituted
only for the more elite workers, leaving the rest in the dust?
(something like that happened in revolution-era Algeria.)
Thanks. A friend tells me, though, that the best part is how well I evoke
the image of being hit on the head by a banner (with a good slogan,
though.) My own presentation at the Workers Table raised the spectre of
co-management for an aristocracy of labour while 80% of the population was
poor and 50% of the working class was in the informal sector. I know that
some ministers are concerned about this very point and some trade union
leaders also. But not all workers (including some who are in recently
nationalised firms). The conclusions of the Table rejected this perspective
and included:
4. Experiences up until now teach us that it is only possible to develop
> the knowledge of the running of companies by workers, when these belong to
> the state. The workers rejected any idea of turning workers of the
> co-managed or managed factories into small proprietors. It corresponds to
> those in the factories, to exert their role as guarantors of the
> sovereignty of the people established in the constitution, so that the
> profits of these companies become part of the social funds which help
> reverse the poverty of wide sections of the Venezuelan population and not
> directed towards stimulating new business ventures.
>
> 5. The participation of the community is fundamental in all of the process
> of workers co-management and management and in the development of the
> alternative model, in order to obtain the means towards the transformation
> of the production model and end social exclusion.
>
I don't remember the experience in Algeria, though, and am away
from my books. Can you (or anyone else) expand on that point?
in solidarity,
michael
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Currently based in Venezuela. Can be reached at
Residencias Anauco Suites
Departamento 601
Parque Central, Zona Postal 1010, Oficina 1
Caracas, Venezuela
(58-212) 573-4111
fax: (58-212) 573-7724
