Building the Third Way

There are not many blogs on the Internet which specialize on the issues of economic democracy or workers self management on the internet. However Larry Hellar’s blog
Building the Third Way: Economic Democracy for the New Millennium is one that consistently  and effectively does. The blog covers issues in the news  from the perspective of both socialism and economic democracy which in his world view is  the essential building block of socialism. He also periodically shares biographical information about some of the often, not well known  and better known greats of the historical workers’ cooperative movements. Finally he often attempts to deal with the problems of capitalism as a system.
Enough of an introduction. People can examine Building the Third Way for themselves. Its link is http://buildingthirdway.blogspot.com/
However I do want to introduce a few of the recent posts from the blog. The first is a recent article on the historic October 2009 agreement between the United Steel Workers and the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation to agree to mutually support the development of worker owned firms that would give workers jobs that would not be at the continued mercy of the fluctuation of capital and short term profit making of most of America’s present corporations in financial institutions.
Glenn
Contrary to the claims of many, most unions (at least in the last 50 years) aren’t anti-capitalist. They’re more than happy to always be what one might call the “loyal opposition.” As long as they’re outsiders they can rant and rave against management while always sounding pro-worker but never, ever, sounding like they opposed capitalism. Most unions are been quick to disavow any idea that the workers themselves should own and manage the shops and factories. The majority of unions are content with negotiating for better pay and more benefits. Sure, there are a few, like the International Workers of the World (IWW), that go beyond but they’re the exception and not the rule.

Finally, there now seems to be a change for one union.

In October of 2009 the United Steelworkers Union announced they were collaborating with the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation (MCC) of Spain to explore increasing the number of worker-owned cooperatives here in the US.
According to the USW International President Leo W. Gerard, “We see today’s agreement as a historic first step towards making union co-ops a viable business model that can create good jobs, empower workers, and support communities in the United States and Canada.” He went on to say, “Too often we have seen Wall Street hollow out companies by draining their cash and assets and hollowing out communities by shedding jobs and shuttering plants. We need a new business model that invests in workers and invests in communities.”
(Source: SolidarityEconomy.Org)

The MCC President of Mondragron Internacional, Josu Ugarte, stated: “What we are announcing today represents a historic first–combining the world’s largest industrial worker cooperative with one of the world’s most progressive and forward-thinking manufacturing unions to work together so that our combined know-how and complimentary visions can transform manufacturing practices in North America. We feel inspired to take this step based on our common set of values with the Steelworkers who have proved time and again that the future belongs to those who connect vision and values to people and put all three first.”

There’s simply no way to predict what will come out of this collaboration. As I mentioned in my blog entry of March 30th there is also the Cleveland Model in which several cooperatives haven been formed. One can hope that maybe, just maybe, that collaboration between MCC and the USW along with the Cleveland Model are examples that the dream of an economic democracy is starting to become more than just a dream.