A Bird in the Hand...

Review of Gar Alperovitz's America Beyond Capitalism

2011-12-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

December 28, 2011

A Review of America Beyond Capitalism by Gar Alperovitz[1]

By Dan Swinney

I just read Gar Alperovitz’s America Beyond Capitalism. Democracy Collaborative Press just released a second edition of the book, first published in 2005, with an updated introduction. It is a thoughtful and serious book with a complex argument that’s worth studying and engaging. Gar’s demand is that as we restructure our society into a Pluralist Commonwealth the ownership of the nation’s wealth must be broadly re-distributed—as James Speth summarizes in the Forward—to benefit the vast majority of American citizens.

Gar and I share a common history and common values. We both went to UW/Madison and were influenced by Bill Williams (and I’m sure there must have been others). Our formative experience was in the southern civil rights movement, the anti-war, and the democratic movements of the 1960s. We both became immersed in the steel industry as it became the sector where the then new American Low Road began to test its new approaches in the 1970s. And we both became deeply engaged in the theory and practice of the labor movement as it faced dramatically different challenges with massive plant closings, layoffs, and concession bargaining. Gar’s work in Youngstown was path breaking in opening up totally new forms of public and labor engagement in manufacturing. He has opened up new ground in the work with his colleagues in Cleveland in the Evergreen Project with their persistent confidence in theory and practice on the power of democracy.

I know from recent discussions Gar’s interest in integrating the various themes related to manufacturing into his work. I put forward the following views in the spirit of stimulating collegial debate and discussion. At a time of great change, strategic debate is essential. Gar sets a high bar for intellectual work and discussion. His views are very influential among a broad range of activists and theorists interested in cooperative development; community revitalization; and building a just, green, and vibrant economy. I look forward to this on-going dialogue as we both work together in addressing the challenges of our country.

Gar makes a critical contribution on issues of democracy, ownership, inequality, and system change in America Beyond Capitalism. The fundamental issue he does not address is how our manufacturing capacity has been destroyed over the last 30-40 years by the same sector responsible for income inequality and what we should do about it. This powerfully destructive trend gave rise to deep urban and rural poverty as we know it, as well as to a cultural stagnation in our society that has reduced us to consumers and speculators. It is reflected in the deterioration of our public education system that now can’t even meet the demand of advanced manufacturing companies for high paying, interesting, and secure jobs, while millions of young people face hopeless futures.

Meanwhile other countries have mobilized their governments as well as private and public sectors to compete to be leaders in global manufacturing. Without a huge American initiative to rebuild and rediscover our manufacturing sector, the problems that Gar describes become even more acute in the next 10 years as the United States is pushed to the sidelines of the global economy. I only wish Gar had explored in this book the huge opportunities in our society to re-define the dynamics and purpose of growth in a way that meets the deep economic, social, and environmental needs of our people and in a way that will strengthen the democracy that he champions.

Gar sees the decline of the strength of the labor movement as the signal for the necessity of a new progressive movement with a new and different institutional foundation. Without a strong labor movement the traditional progressive movement is without strength, he maintains. The “democratization of capital” must begin at the community level, leading to state and federal transformations—a process that can be accelerated by new conditions that may arise. Gar, in the Introduction to his book, cites the Evergreen Cooperatives Project in Cleveland—with its laundry servicing local anchor institutions like the Cleveland Clinic, its weatherization and solar installation business, and its hydroponic greenhouse—as an example of the new democratic institutions that can possibly create the foundation for the new progressive movement. These efforts are inspired by Gar’s interpretation of Mondragon as an example of the democratization of capital. Gar cites the number of ESOPs in this country, the growth of social enterprises, and other Evergreen-like efforts around the country. He points to the importance of the linkage of these efforts to broader community structures—not coops only accountable to their worker owners. He sees this as the essential beginning of a long, slow developmental path that—similar to the civil rights movement in the 40s and 50s—will give rise to an explosive movement at some point in the future, hopefully before the greater domination of right wing “friendly fascist” movements in our country.

Despite Gar’s intent, this sole focus on democratization of corporate wealth misses the major point regarding the source and character of the crisis in our communities—the loss of manufacturing companies, manufacturing jobs, and the culture of innovation in production in our society. He underestimates the volatility and danger we face in this decade if we fail to rebuild and transform our manufacturing base. And he underestimates the enormous opportunities for transformation that are also present in this period if we build a movement for manufacturing driven by the values of sustainable and restorative development. He focuses on important issues that are required in the discussion for transformative change but insufficient to effect that change by themselves.

We faced a dramatic change in the social contract in the 1970s. A powerful segment of the private sector abandoned its responsibility for the care and development of our productive capacity. It sought the highest return in the shortest amount of time no matter what the damage to the manufacturing sector and society as a whole. It used new Information Technology to gather huge amounts of data for speculative purposes and to shift capital quickly to anywhere in the global economy. This powerful group of financial capitalists—the “Low Roaders”—oversaw the destruction of America’s productive capacity—beginning with the thousands and thousands of company closings and the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs—including those at Youngstown Sheet and Tube in 1977—an early chapter in the development of Gar’s thinking. It was these events and their ripple effects that gave rise to the crisis in community that Gar describes. Later these same values and essentially the same technology was to be used in other profoundly destructive ways in real estate speculation, exotic financial investments, and in the architecture of our major financial and investment institutions that gave rise to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.

Unfortunately, leaders in the broad public sector—in government, in community, and labor—didn’t recognize the violation of the social contract and its consequences in the 1970s. Under the traditional social contract, the public role was focused on redistribution of wealth, improving the conditions of work, regulation as a means to block or minimize socially or environmentally destructive practices, and sustaining and expanding a social safety net. The private sector guided and made the decisions on all aspects of making things and creating wealth—serving as the steward of our productive capacity. In the 1970s, powerful parts of the private sector abandoned this role of stewardship requiring the public sector—ready or not—to step into those responsibilities to develop and protect our productive capacity as well. The public sector overwhelmingly failed to respond—sticking to its traditional role of redistribution and regulation, or hoping for a major federal intervention in one form or another. Gar’s recent work remains stuck in these traditional zones with some experimentation and different thinking around the edges. The examples he gives in America Beyond Capitalism of efforts by community organizations, community development corporations, ESOPs, and labor remain firmly within those traditions. The embrace of Mondragon by the Steelworkers was a promising initiative but has yet to have real application as far as I know.

A few general comments:

1. Mondragon’s founders had a deep commitment to manufacturing as the foundation for the regional economy, the context for economic democracy, and the development of a modern and sustainable community. This same combination is reflected in the development vision and history of Emilia Romagna in northern Italy—another critical site for study by those seeking new models. Those—including Gar—who champion Mondragon as the model we should follow—are for the most part silent on this key aspect of Mondragon. He and others who champion cooperative development and economic democracy have tended to interpret Mondragon to the world with a focus on the cooperative aspect, and ignoring the manufacturing heart of the Mondragon development vision.

2. The issues of production, innovation, and growth are central to a transformative vision of economic development for our society. In this context, issues of democracy, participation, community development and equity, the environment, the opportunities for labor, the role of government, and the responsibilities of civil society become critical. Organizations with an “equity” agenda are missing a huge opportunity when they avoid these key themes.

3. Gar recognizes the huge differences that exist between the 13,000 publicly traded companies and the 8 million privately held companies in our country in his interview with the Capital Institute.[2] Yet in this interview and other writings such as Community Stability and the Challenge of Climate Change[3] he doesn’t advance any specifics on working with this privately-held sector. This sector in small and medium-sized manufacturing companies is moving decisively into advanced manufacturing requiring an embrace of innovation in all aspects of production and requiring a partnership with a competent public sector. In this framework, the potential for a true private public partnership driving innovation in production as well as society as a whole becomes possible, as well as the re-development of communities so devastated by de-industrialization in the 1970s and 1980s. If we can truly see a private/public High Road partnership that includes private owners; cooperative owners; community leaders; Republicans, Democrats, and Independents; as well as labor and management—we suddenly have the basis for a new kind of optimism about a new scale to our efforts.

4. Gar sees the decline of the labor movement as a key factor in requiring that progressives need to embrace the vision of the Public Commonwealth. He cites a study by Michael Wallerstein on how the “large scale and huge labor force…made union organizing difficult and expensive.”[4] Why would growth in the size of the US working class be an insurmountable obstacle for the leadership of the US labor movement? Starting in the 1970s, the US labor movement faced a qualitative change in the US economy. They faced plant closings, huge layoffs, and concession bargaining. They failed to develop an appropriate strategy for that change and paid the consequences as they became weaker and weaker. Today we have unions and their federations starting to make that change in strategy and leading in the rebuilding or our economy. The Chicago Federation of Labor was a leader in the creation of the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council (www.chicagomanufacturing.org) that was formed to essentially implement the recommendations of an earlier CFL/CLCR study, Creating a Manufacturing Career Path in Cook County in 2001[5]. The Chicago Teachers Union was on the design team that created Austin Polytechnical Academy (www.austinpolytech.org) in 2005 representing cutting edge reform in public education linked to the opportunities in manufacturing. The California Federation of Labor is playing a leading role in the San Francisco Bay Area Manufacturing Renaissance Council along with the California Teachers Association. And we have the United Steelworkers of America in its interesting connection with Mondragon. A new strategic direction for labor focused on rebuilding our productive capacity and leading the reform in our major educational and public institutions will increase its size and influence dramatically.

5. As I am, Gar is skilled in staying positioned and focused during long periods of incremental change. On the other hand, I believe we are in a period that has greater potential for transformative change in America than any time in the last 100 years. With a program that is guided by a commitment to manufacturing, growth, innovation and equity; as well as recognizing a much broader array of strategic and tactical allies, we may see an explosive moment in our future. If our thinking, our actions, and our alliances are big enough, we could set the stage for a new American economy that is anchored in a commitment to social, economic, and environmental sustainability and restoration more than any of us could have imagined even 10 years ago.

I invite Gar to join me in applying his visionary talents to America’s modern advanced manufacturing sector. I’m looking forward to the sequel to America Beyond Capitalism.

Note: Author Dan Swinney is the Executive Director for the Center for Labor and Community Research (www.clcr.org) as well as the Managing Director of the National Manufacturing Renaissance Campaign. He founded Austin Polytechnical Academy (www.austinpolytech.org) inspired by the history of Mondragon that was also first started with a polytechnical school that combined the skills of leading manufacturing with the values of democracy and community development.

[1] America Beyond Capitalism, by Gar Alperovitz; second edition, 2011; Democracy Collaborative Press; 320 pages.

[2] http://www.capitalinstitute.org/conversation/braintrust/gar-alperovitz

[3] http://www.community-wealth.org/_pdfs/news/recent-articles/04-10/overview-report-alperovitz.pdf

[4] America Beyond Capitalism, p. 69.

[5] http://www.clcr.org/publications/pdf/final%20MWDP%20report030802.pdf

Good Focus by Brizard

2011-10-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

APA students in class with instructor Pablo Verela

The coverage of CPS CEO Jean Claude Brizard and his views on career and technical education in the Huffington Post was refreshing.

This is a strong step in the right direction. Nationally there are 14 million people out of work yet 3 million jobs unfilled. These are typically good paying jobs that require high skills and often require certifications of various kinds. The CPS Career and Technical Education (CTE) program can provide the link to these unfilled jobs—a real bridge between our communities and those companies. And as he says, “…when kids see a real connection between what they are learning and how this will affect them outside of high school, they see more reasons to commit to it. The relevancy element is fundamental.”

At Austin Polytechnical Academy (www.austinpolytech.org), a CTE school specializing in manufacturing, students that have historically had real academic difficulties are doing better when they have real contextual education—the relevancy element. The improvement in test scores in Math has been great at APA. In addition to some highly motivated teaching in math, students experience applied math in their engineering and machining classes. They also get the chance to tour manufacturing companies where math is used every day by people with interesting, well-paid, and secure careers. We are sure this is due to the “relevancy element.”

As Brizard mentions, creative collaborations are key. At Austin Polytech, we have 65 companies as partners that provide tours, job shadowing, internships, summer jobs, and maybe a career job for the motivated student. Graduating senior, Marquiese Booker now has a career track job at Laystrom Manufacturing, with the head engineer as his mentor. Marquiese had proven his value to the company in a summer job in his senior year where he showed up at 5 AM every morning, as well as earning two National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) credentials at APA. Every student at APA is encouraged to get NIMS credentials. So far, 89 students have secured 125 credentials, and APA has become the only NIMS accredited high school in Illinois.

CPS is to be applauded for encouraging these types of programs, and changing the negative image that so often has accompanied the notion of “vocational” education.

Huffington Post article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/jean-claude-brizard-champ_n_996157.html

Remembering Dwight Eastman

2010-10-10T15:46:00.000-07:00

Remembering Dwight Eastman, October 2, 2010

Given at a celebration of his life.

(Dwight passed away after a three year battle with cancer on September 20, 2010)

Gathering in memory of the death of someone very close is always a moment of sadness and reflection. But these can also be very positive and powerful moments of transformation. We can create new kinds of relationships even with those we’ve known for a long time. We can entertain and embrace new thoughts that emerge from reflection on the life of the person who has left us. We now have the opportunity for that transformation as we celebrate the rich, complex, and passionate life of Dwight Eastman. Not too many like him will come our way.

Dwight was my oldest and best friend. I first met Dwight in the fall of 1985 while he was running with Michael Schlesinger on Logan Blvd. They were both eager to recruit me for the Logan Square 10K race they had organized. Shortly after that first meeting, Dwight and I ran together. He was far more experienced and faster than me, and very competitive—egging me on to do more that very first day.

He was also incredibly engaging and interested in me, in who I was, in what I thought, and in where I was going. In that early run we shared values, ideas, and experiences with a level of detail and intensity that normally happen years into some relationships and usually never with most we know. That was the beginning of a rich, deep friendship that we shared during the core of our adult lives.

We ran, typically 3-4 days a week—mostly hard, sometimes long and slow, sometimes fast and short—always with a discussion about ideas and life. He introduced me to the marathon and the triathlon. Dwight, Michael, and I launched our running team—the Psycho Geezers—in 1986, when we thought “40” was old. This gave way to long swims in Lake Michigan before the sun rose on Wednesday mornings, the winter solstice celebration and 10 mile runs on icy roads at Elvira’s farm, the 80 mile River to River Relay Race, and later to climbing in the Tetons and Wind River Range in Wyoming. A month after his surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, Dwight and I did the Chicago Triathlon together. Despite everything else that went on the lives of two men, there was a predictable 5 or 6 hours a week of intense exercise, laughter, engaged debate, and thoughtful exchange.

When Dwight was diagnosed with cancer, my initial reaction was personal anger. I had always assumed Dwight and I would grow really old together—and despite all the ups and downs—we would continue our exercise—even if feebly, extol the virtues of the Psycho Geezer program, and talk and laugh about life. Over the last three years the anger has left and been replaced with a thankfulness that I had such a good friend who left me with thousands of memories that I can pull from at any moment.

Dwight was unbridled in his embrace of competition. Sometimes it was expressed in a soft smugness—other times a bold explicit challenge. It was deep in his character. For some, competition is a corrosive force creating wounds that don’t heal. When we see it so strongly, it can lead to suspicion. With Dwight, it was an overwhelming positive and constructive part of his character. For us, it created a bond that made us both stronger. He always set a high standard—commenting that the race or run we were in “wasn’t no frigging tea party.” The competition always exposed weakness but in a spirit that encouraged positive examination and growth. He was the first to step into new and daunting territory—the marathon, the triathlon, the Big Shoulders Swim, icey cold water—providing us with the motivation and inspiration to do what we had previously thought was impossible.

In addition to his competitive passion for life, he also had wisdom and a discipline that will always influence me and the way I approach life’s challenges. And I’m sure that he had the same influence on many of you.

In one of our first discussion, he told me that “We live in the realm of imperfection”—a simple reflection that still gives me a way to understand, to adjust, to accept the complexity and difficulties in life that always co-exist with the positive, the affirming, and the predictable. Sometimes I thought it might be a rational for making a mistake or doing harm or, more likely, he was stating the importance of forgiveness for all of us in the course of long lives.

In more dramatic fashion, he gave me a call following the meeting with his doctor when he learned of his cancer and its severity. He said without hesitation or even drama, something to the effect—“As Buddha says, it’s the best day of your life when you know your execution date. It frees you to focus on the truly important things of life.” I was, and remain stunned by his statement and the absolute knowledge that this is how he lived the last three years of his life. He was accepting of the changes in his life and body, in his capacities, and in his narrowing range of options. But he retained his courage and determination; his optimism and good will; and his eagerness to see all of us, to know what we were thinking and to know how we were doing. He focused on his deep affection for his family—all generations and connections-- Elvira, Jason, Risa, Matt, Moira, and Jasper; his sisters Susan and Anne and their families; and for his loving partner Angela. I know there were more difficult times than I saw, but I do know there was in Dwight truly remarkable spirit that rarely wavered for long. We will all be stronger in our focus on what is important in the inevitable difficult stages of life, because we knew Dwight.

And then in the last few days when the option of a true quality of life had ebbed, he exercised the complete control over what he could--so nothing would extend the difficulties for him and the heartbreak for those close to and gathered around him. The struggling subsided and he stepped into and embraced a peaceful, calm transition.

We should all be so strong in these difficult yet normal and predictable stages of life.

I feel so honored and rich for having Dwight in my life.

In the realm of imperfection, the brightest star sometimes burns the quickest.

In Chicago’ Austin community: Alinsky vs. Arizmendi

2007-10-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

October 13, 2007

The post World War II era gave rise to two visionaries who sought to extend greater democracy and wealth to their low income constituencies as part of a broader vision to change the world. Both were critical of capitalism as well as the kind of socialism practiced in the Soviet Union that relied solely on the state. Both mobilized the grass roots to exercise power on their own behalf and did so in their thousands having a profound impact on the communities they served. Both are studied by young and veteran organizers around the world looking for new solutions to old seemingly intractable problems.

Saul Alinsky, influenced deeply by John L. Lewis of the United Mineworkers of America, advanced a vision for low-income communities that paralleled the successful organizing strategy of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. This was a strategy premised evidently on the notion that the means of production, the creators of wealth in the United States were doing a decent job. After all, what was good for General Motors was good for the country. At that time, the profits of the big America corporations generally coincided with the long term development of the sector they had invested in: GM made cars and seem to be in it for the long term, making investments in new technology and generally keeping pace. IBM did the same with computers. US Steel did the same with steel. And traditional, typically white middle class communities where these big companies were located as well as the upper classes did quite well. Communities, workers, and entrepreneurs of color faced discrimination in every aspect of the economy and society including wages and conditions of work, access to ownership, housing, and unequal justice.

Alinsky didn’t focus on the well-being of the means of production but on the improvement of the distribution of wealth that the system generated to include communities that were systematically excluded or shortchanged because they were Black, Latino, or working class. He and his organizations fought against all forms of discrimination and injustice. His pioneering organizations were created in Chicago—The Woodlawn Organization, the Back of the Yards, and the Organization for a Better Austin. They were initiated by professional organizers recruited by and affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, and later by emerging organizations that embraced the Alinsky approach. In Austin, the Organization for Better Austin imploded when a top leader turned out to be a spy for the police department. A number of smaller regional organizations such as the South Austin Community Coalition, the Northwest Austin Council, and the Northeast Austin Organization, and others formed. They mobilized and organized local residents based on their “self-interest” and around immediate and important demands for better and fair housing, for social and racial justice, for welfare reform, and other immediate issues just as their trade union parallel did in the big mills and plants around the country. They organized for the re-distribution of wealth to their particular constituencies leaving all the questions associated with the creation of wealth to corporate America.

At the same time, in the Basque region of northern Spain in the village of Mondragon, a priest Father Jose Maria Arizmendi took a different tack. He was part of the Basque resistance to Franco, the Spanish fascist who had taken power in Spain in the late 1930s. During this time, he was arrested and narrowly escaped execution. He was assigned to the parish in the small town of Mondragon. He assumed in his approach that controlling and developing the means of production in light of the values and priorities of the local community should be the principal focus of organizing and organizational development. rather than just focusing on the broader distribution of wealth. It was at the point of production, where work was done that democracy should be extended, where worker/residents had the greatest leverage and power, and he took full advantage of the cooperative structure to achieve this goal. This was more complicated work but in the long run more powerful.

In 1943, shortly after arriving in Mondragon, he organized a polytechnical school for young Basque people that taught both the technical skills of manufacturing and production as well as values. In 1956, with five graduates of this school, Arizmendi purchased a gas stove company and organized it on a cooperative basis—one worker/one vote and a compensation ratio of one to three. The initial company employed 30 worker owners. It was successful. Another company was launched with another team, and then another, and then another. By the mid-1970s, they had some 45 companies employing 17,000 workers in manufacturing and retail as well as a shared cooperative bank, vocational schools, and housing cooperatives. In 2007, the Mondragon network—now the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation—has 85 companies employing 130,000 people globally. There are major cooperatives in retail as well as manufacturing. Eroski is a big box retail store that is owned by its employees and owners and has kept Wal-Mart out of Spain. Mondragon is the cutting edge of the Spanish industrial economy, and the region is recognized as one of the leading manufacturing regions in the global economy. Unemployment is very low and per capita income is high. Democracy is a reality in politics as well as in the economy.

Arizmendi recognized the central role of wealth creation in society and the fact that market sophistication and competition could be combined with social values. Through organizing, leadership development, and organizational sophistication, Arrizmendi led a movement that has contended successfully in the market and state, and profoundly influenced civil society.

Today, the Alinsky-inspired movement is less and less effective. The private sector has qualitatively changed and the powerful Low Road segment that is dominated by Wall Street and large multi-national publicly-traded companies has shattered the social contract that made the Alinsky inspired movement viable throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Among the most powerful companies, short term gains for shareholders has replaced any desire or long-term commitment to particular companies, products, or sectors much less the communities where production takes place. A social movement in the US can no longer depend on limiting its role to just redistribution of wealth. Redistribution is required but no longer sufficient. It’s essential that those interested in sustainable communities take up the issues of wealth creation and find alliances with those in the business community who still share a contemporary version of the old idea of stewardship.

From my perspective, Arizmendi was and is a more powerful and effective visionary in setting the course for organizing in communities than Alinsky. Now more than ever we need to use perspectives such as his in not just asking others for development that includes community residents but making it happen in ways that remain under local control and guided by local values. We need to develop the skill and vision that allows those with a commitment to development that is environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable to compete in the market, in the state, and in civil society against the destructive Low Road trend. There is now a broad vacuum of leadership in the economy and society, particularly in communities like Austin. We should contend to fill that vacuum with a vision that truly builds the community on behalf of its residents. Austin Polytech is part of that effort.

The High Road and the Low Road

2007-10-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

ON THE HIGH ROAD/LOW ROAD

The concepts of the HR/LR, from my understanding, first emerged in European literature in the mid-90s. In this country, it was introduced by people like Joel Rogers and in the framework of various labor/community coalitions such as Sustainable America and initiatives by the sections of the AFL-CIO that engaged in workforce development and strategic campaigns related to the labor movement. In this setting, the use of the terms generally weren’t for transformative reasons but to increase bargaining and organizing leverage for trade unions and coalitions.

For CLCR, the HR/LR formulation has become a key component of our strategic vision—a vision that we seek to bring into all of our work including the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council, Austin Polytech, the Solidarity Economy Network-US, and the North American Network on the Solidarity Economy.

We see the HR/LR as a key formulation in the vision that seeks an economic and social system with a commitment to development that is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable; and based on the social partnership of business, labor, government, and community. We are fundamentally committed to an international vision of HR development that accepts globalization as a fact. In this international context we seek to define and advance the High Road and understand and block the Low Road.

With this as a premise, our vision of development is transformative and challenges the fundamental assumptions and trends of what has affectionately become known as neo-liberalism. The neo-liberal vision represents the celebration of the Low Road and has come to be “a”, if not “the”, dominant trend in the global economy. We really seek a comprehensive economic and social system that is based on different principles and assumptions—and that can successfully contend in the market place, the state, and in civil society.

Finally, this is a political movement with a small “p”. It’s objectives and programs are supported as well as opposed by Democrats, Republicans, Greens, and independents. As such, building strong alliances and coalitions among the social partners becomes fundamental. This organizing work is the complicated but finally essential work that goes with this vision.

For that reason, the ambiguity of the notion of HR/LR is useful. It doesn’t have ideological baggage from either the left or right. Everyone knows intuitively what it means and general direction it should take them in. Then we have the work to make the application more specific and accurate through in-depth research and analysis.

The notion of the Low Road emerged first in naming business practices. That limit is no longer acceptable if we are to be successful in building the kinds of coalitions we need to bring about change—hence the beginning efforts to define the HR/LR in the context of all the social partners.

Defining the High Road and Low Road is not science but a judgment. Typically companies, organizations, and agencies have a mix of both High Road and Low Road practices. The intent is to understand and reward the High Road, as well as to understand and discourage the Low Road. In both the private and public sectors, the High Road seeks a strong return on investment by:

· Being smarter and investing in innovation in the more competitive environment;

· Making a commitment to the continual enhancement of employees’ skills and their involvement in all aspects of the company or organization;

· Being more efficient and cutting waste;

· Having a long-term vision and commitment;

· Providing strong material incentives for high performance, as well as providing decent wages, benefits, and security;

· Promoting useful partnerships with stakeholders both within the firm, in the sector, and in the community; and

· Being transparent, straightforward and fair.

At the very heart of a High Road strategy is a commitment to innovation, such as developing new niches and markets, adding value to existing products, investing in research and development, expanding market share, and improving the efficiency of the productive process and the productivity of employees. Some would see this as the way manufacturing was generally done in the past; it is not a particularly new concept.

In contrast, the Low Road in business seeks a strong return on investment by:

· Emphasizing short-term gains, even if they mean postponing or sacrificing improvements in the productive capacity of the company or sector;

· Keeping wages and benefits at the lowest possible levels;

· Managing by intimidation, undermining employee initiative, and discouraging the exercise of employee rights; and

· Ignoring the needs and concerns of those beyond the most short-sighted and powerful shareholders, investors, and/or managers.

In the public sector, the Low Road also exists when particular organizations or agencies place their own rewards and benefit as such a high priority that they are willing to do damage to their partners or the broader economy. For example:

In government—holding on to bureaucratic strength and privilege no matter what the consequence for the public;

In labor—negotiations for an excessive contract with an employer that is really trying to find the High Road that places the company fundamentally at risk in the pursuit of short-term benefits for union members; or

In community—pursing a “community benefits agreement” for a specific constituency with a company such as Wal-Mart whose business plan will devastate the regional economy.

The use of High Road and Low Road by a variety of commentators, leaders, policy formulators, and organizers is increasing. This is a very useful development and CLCR will continue to give increased definition to these terms through our analytical work and practice.

Austin Polytech Academy--more fun and more meaningful

2007-09-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

2007-09-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

The next and best generation...

2007-09-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

In the last year, I have been the project manager for this new school--Austin Polytechnical Academy (APA) (http://www.austinpolytech.com/) —a new public high school in Chicago that will:

--Provide excellent contextual education for young people in Chicago that links them to dynamic careers in manufacturing;

--Create a new generation of leaders for advanced manufacturing;

--Demonstrate the means and the power of merging the creation of wealth with community development; and

--Provide a new model for urban school reform.

CLCR and our partners created the Design Team, wrote a successful proposal that won community support and a positive decision from the Board of Education, recruited an excellent principal—Bill Gerstein; and have created a community of support from local manufacturing companies, local community leaders, and others.

I see this school as essentially the same type of school that was created by Don José Arrrizmendiarrieta in Mondragon Spain. His school, started in 1943, trained young people in the technical skill of manufacturing as well as giving them the values and political orientation that gave rise to the first successful cooperative in 1956 that has now grown to 130 or so cooperatives employing 85,000 people and represents the cutting edge of the Spanish industrial economy. It also constitutes a world model for development that accepts the framework of the market as a major area for activity—but the major goals of the effort are the development of the community not individual wealth--but more on that for future entries into my blog, and central to the blog of my CLCR colleague—Dan Bianchi—currently studying in Mondragon (http://www.danbianchi.blogspot.com/) .

This school is part of a broader project that I direct—the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council (http://www.chicagomanufacturing.org/) that has its objective as making Chicago the world leader in high value-added manufacturing or “leading the race to the top.” Austin Poly is our first project in our effort to transform public education and bring it to world class standards. We expect to do 5-6 other schools like this in Chicago.

Following is a longer essay on Austin Polytech and school reform. I would be very interested in your comments.

New Directions for School Reform in Chicago—Austin Polytechnical Academy

2007-09-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

Austin Polytech – the result of an unlikely partnership of labor, business, community, education and government leaders gathered in the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council--has important implications for progressive education reform nationally.

Austin Polytech is a new public high school that’s connected to a unique and powerful vision of community renewal and economic development. This school is at the foundation of a new strategy in Chicago to dramatically shift the paradigm of economic development in a direction that can actually end poverty, challenge racism and restore our communities.

The school reform movement can generally be divided into four trends:

--Those whose focus is principally on the quality of jobs—wages, benefits, and conditions of work—for educators and administrators within the system in one way or another;

--Those who seek greater community and parent involvement and control of the educational system;

--Those preparing students for the best jobs and careers they think are possible in the current declining society; and

--Those with a deep and legitimate critique of the economic and social trends in our society and who want to insure that the next generation includes critical thinkers, effective advocates for change at all levels, and those who will refuse to become passive cogs in the wheel of society.

Each has their strengths… and all are required, but not sufficient.

What they have in common is that none go far enough in promoting or being linked to an economic development strategy that addresses the root causes of persistent poverty today. They lack an effective connection between education and a positive vision of economic development for our communities. Austin Polytech is an attempt to bridge that gap, and to promote a model for school reform that is truly transformative for our students and their communities. Austin Polytech is committed to challenging the dominant economic development paradigm by offering a positive alternative: a High Road vision of community economic development.

Austin Polytech will, of course, provide students with the tools they need, individually, to escape poverty including a connection to meaningful work and college, as well as become effective advocates and citizens. But more importantly it will give students the critical skills and tools needed to challenge and change the current economic paradigm that keeps so many of our communities in poverty.

Background

The Center for Labor and Community Research (CLCR) is a non-profit research and consulting firm focused on ending poverty through innovative approaches to economic development.

We work with a broad range of stakeholders – from labor, to communities, to business to government – because the kind of economic development we’re talking about depends on a strong social partnership to make it work—and to make it truly accountable to our core constituencies: labor and communities. We measure success by the degree to which economic development responds to social needs.

We entered the field of education seven years ago because our research showed us that a world-class, local education system was fundamental to the retention and further development of our local industrial economy.

Contrary to what you read in the papers, manufacturing remains the most important sector of the economy. Directly and indirectly, manufacturing is the largest single source and driver of employment. Manufacturing wages are the highest of all sectors, offers career-pathways out of poverty and into the middle class and has a more positive ripple-effect on the whole economy than any other industry. (See Manufacturing and Illinois’ Future at www.clcr.org)

We first documented the challenges facing our workforce development system in 2001. In partnership with the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL), we completed a major study of the public training and education system in relation to manufacturing in the Chicago area and published Creating a Manufacturing Career Path System in Cook County.[1]

In preparing the report, we had the opportunity to visit and learn about world “best practice” with a visit to Germany and Denmark. We were introduced to new and innovative approaches to the way education is done, such as small learning communities by the Small Schools Workshop in Chicago. We became familiar with the excellent work of the National Institute for Metalworking Skills. And we met others within and outside the educational system--all providing important perspectives for the recommendations of the report.

What we uncovered about our own workforce development system shocked us. Despite the overwhelming importance of manufacturing to the local economy (it’s the single most important sector of Illinois’ economy), we basically found a non-system that served neither companies nor residents.

While the social and economic changes of the last 30 years have created enormous poverty in the face of an increasingly wealthy elite, they have also created the space, imperative, and potential partnerships that could not only allow us to stem the hemorrhage of jobs, but also redirect our economy onto a path of economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable development; a transformative agenda premised on the real ability to end poverty—not just help poor people.

This kind of system-change has to start with our public education system. We need leaders in education that recognize this opportunity and become an integral part of the movement to change the paradigm of development and to inspire and educate the next generation of leaders from our society—particularly young people who come from the communities that have been devastated the most—to build a positive alternative in the social, political and economic arenas.

A New Direction and New Private/Public Partnerships

The 2001 report mentioned earlier contained, in addition to its critique, a positive, 20-year vision of change for public education including the creation of small schools linked to the manufacturing sector, the transformation of our community college system, the creation of a workforce development system based on nationally-recognized skill standards in manufacturing and a method for certification that was broadly recognized, with a focus on career paths within the various sectors in manufacturing.

The Illinois Manufacturer’s Association (IMA) representing some 4,000 manufacturing companies in Illinois immediately took interest in the recommendation. While a minority of IMA members are companies large enough to search the world to solve their workforce challenges, more than 85% of the IMA members are small, locally-owned, privately held companies. These companies face a loss of 40% of their workforce in the next 10 years. They don’t have the capacity to solve their workforce challenges alone. The CFL/CLCR report spoke directly to their interests—candidly describing a failed education system, but offering positive solutions going forward.

As a result of the report, the IMA hired CLCR to complete a more focused study on Illinois manufacturing and its challenges. The report, The State of Illinois Manufacturing[2] successfully challenged the IMA to initiate a High Road partnership with labor, government, and community around a common vision of Illinois “Leading the Race to the Top in Global High Performance Manufacturing.”

We recognized that in the global economy we will continue to lose many low skilled jobs to developing countries like China, Mexico and India. (And of course the people in China, Mexico and India have a right to develop their own economies and societies as well.) We should do what we can to save as many jobs as we can, but most of all we should concentrate on competing in the high value-added section of manufacturing by making complex products. This is the kind of production that creates a truly innovative society on many levels. This is where Illinois and our country have a competitive advantage. These are the products we can charge the most for, pay the highest wages, provide good benefits, and still make a solid return. And this is the kind of production that requires a world-class education system, as well as a world-class social, physical, and technological infrastructure. Mutual investment and mutual responsibility by both the public and private sectors makes absolute business and social sense. This kind of High Road/High Performance development strategy actually makes ending poverty possible; and a environmentally, economically and socially sustainable society a reality.

This initiative took hold in Chicago with the creation of the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council (CMRC) in July, 2005—a federation of the top business, labor, governmental, community and education organizations and agencies. The CMRC is engaged in several projects related to education including an assessment of our community college system in light of best international practice as well as a research and public education initiative to promote the use of the National Institute for Metalworking Skills standards by area companies and schools. But most exciting is the creation of Austin Polytechnical Academy (APA)—a new public high school in the African American community on Chicago’s West Side.

Austin Polytech Leading the Race to the Top!

APA will be a small performance school (not charter) that will open in Sept. 2007 with 145 freshmen with the approval of the Austin TAC—the community advisory board established in the Renaissance 2010 process. APA will add a class each year to reach a size of 550 to 600 students. It will be one of three small schools that will occupy the four-story building that was once Austin High School. Its teachers will be represented by the Chicago Teachers Union. Though open to any student in Chicago, APA will focus on recruiting students from the Austin neighborhood.

There are a few reasons we chose Austin to lead off Chicago’s manufacturing renaissance. Austin is an African American community on the far West Side. Once a stable working class community, its residents have witnessed a dramatic loss of manufacturing companies and jobs over the last 25 years. The result is 30% poverty rates, with less than two-thirds of residents over 25 completing high school. A high percentage of families also have a connection to the criminal justice system as well as other reflections of the pathology of poverty that haunts America’s urban communities.

Austin also has a number of assets that make success here likely, despite the odds: there is a culture of work and manufacturing in the community, with generations of residents that historically have participated in Chicago’s industrial working class. There’s a long tradition of community and labor activism including a determined effort to retain Brach Candy Company over a number of years. And the community is in close proximity to rail lines and key transportation routes.

Austin Polytech will be a unique place for teaching and learning. First and foremost, APA will provide a safe, nurturing, and stimulating educational environment for all students no matter what their final career and life choice; no matter what their ability or disability or special need. We have a great team to start the school with an experienced principal and Assistant Principal, a core of teachers, and broad team of advisors including educators, the Chicago Teachers Union, the Small Schools Workshop, manufacturers, a representative of the local community college system, and the community itself.

Direct Links to Local Manufacturers: APA is linked generally to careers in modern manufacturing and principally to the metal working sector. Traditional vocational education reserved a limited role for average people in the production process and was essentially a programmatic extension of discriminatory practices in society at large.

In contrast, APA will promote career paths in manufacturing that include skilled production and technical positions, management, and ownership of companies. It is internationalist in its orientation. Development in the United States and other first world societies can no longer come at the expense of the rest of the world. APA’s curriculum also recognizes that the opportunity lies in being competitive in key sectors in the global economy by understanding best international practice in both production as well as education and striving to meet and exceed those models. APA already has established a learning partnership with a secondary school in Bologna, Italy--Aldini Valerani--in the innovative Emilia-Romagna Region.

APA will prepare students for college and advanced degrees, as well as for employment immediately after graduation. The historic line between vocational and college-prep is blurred. Both are indispensable for modern manufacturing and the future of our society. APA’s curriculum incorporates Project Lead the Way, a nationally recognized pre-engineering program. In addition, each student will graduate with at least two credentials from the National Institute for Metalworking Skills and perhaps as many as eight, qualifying them for immediate employment in skilled positions out of high school, if that’s what they choose.

We have 23 mostly small manufacturing companies who have signed on as Austin Polytech Partners and we expect at least 30 by the time school opens. These High Road companies will provide general support for the school; work-exposure for freshmen students; internships and summer jobs for students starting in their sophomore year; and prospects for full time employment upon graduation. Companies as well as teachers, community, parents, and students will be represented on the governing body of the school. A key position will be a full-time industry coordinator as intermediary between companies and the school.

APA will have an “Evening Center,” not only for after school programs and clubs for its students, but for parents and adult residents of the entire community. The adult program will start with a community technology center teaching basic computer literacy, but with a range of other program, from family wellness to job search and preparation resources.

More specifically, APA is explicitly anchored in a unique development agenda for the local community that is consistent with the vision of the CMRC as applied on the community level. The focus is on creating a mixed economy that includes a strong and vibrant high performance manufacturing sector, instead of simply abandoning the community to big-box retailers like Wal-Mart that pay low wages and/or gentrification of the housing market.

In the last month, close to 300 students have signed up for the 140 open positions. There is a buzz in the industrial press. There is coverage in the local media for a school that won’t open for 8 months. And as Shonta Arrington—a long-term Austin resident and member of the education advisory council (TAC) said at the hearing before Chicago’s Board of Education, “APA is the first thing in many years that has given me hope for Austin. Now our children can be leaders in the global economy rather than its victims.”

Implications for Educators and the School Reform Movement

There are at least five main themes that need to become part of a viable and dynamic movement for school reform in Chicago and around the country.

First--A Direct Link to a Contemporary Development Vision: Education requires a profound link to a comprehensive economic development vision that will rebuild and further develop our communities. Many of the current educational efforts accept the current development model as inevitable. Education in the inner city is geared to preparing kids to go to college to leave their community and secure jobs in the public and service sector in an economy they expect to be dominated by service and retail. There’s a weak connection – if any – with the local productive sector. This is ironic, considering that local manufacturing depends on a strong linkage with public education for its survival.

Those educators and school reformers who are critical of the broader economic and social system see education as the means to create critical thinkers who will oppose what’s wrong in society and resist being “cogs in its wheels.” They will become the teachers, the advocates, the organizers, the informed who will oppose the decline in our country, principally through influencing the decisions being made at all levels within government and politics as well as civil society.

We think that this kind of education is essential but not sufficient to truly transform our society. It’s not enough to simply oppose what is wrong. First, you must offer a positive alternative—a competitive vision of a different paradigm that’s consistent with our values and commitment to social justice and sustainable development. Such a model of development exists. Second, it’s essential to contend in the market for this vision and not remain only focused on influencing government and state policy.

Particularly the progressive political community has viewed the market place or the economy as only the terrain for those who believe in Low Road capitalism—and to be involved in business or to be part of “corporate America” is by definition corruption. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, we must compete for our policies in government and the state, but also in the market-- in companies and in production. Our students need to have both the technical as well as political, organizational, managerial, and financial skills to realize this High Road model as we contend with and defeat the Low Road model that’s at the source of so much destruction. We know from experience that offering this kind of comprehensive alternative provides inspiration and meaning to people—young and old, and makes risk and hard work worth it…including staying in school.

It doesn’t mean that all students must become a particular kind of employee or leader, but a framework for education shaped by such a vision is essential. To the degree that an alternative vision of development is missing, initiatives at school reform—such as those that have flourished in Chicago--are compromised and can lead to an educational experience and educational structure that re-enforces the traditional paradigm of this society despite intentions to the contrary.

Second--Link Education and Work: It’s key to explicitly link education and work in a positive way for all students. The notion that linking education to work somehow diminishes the experience or compromises critical thinking and broader vision reflects a dated understanding of the character of work—particularly that in high performance companies and organizations. We seek the right balance in education in the use of national standards and certification, as well as promoting broad education and critical thinking—as both are now required in the development of our society. We completely share the critique of the No Child Left Behind policy and think that having an entire system geared to learning how to take a test rather than broader education is horrifically destructive.

Third--Create Meaningful Career Paths for Students: Our objective is to insure that public education is at least successful in creating career paths and provides strong material incentives for students and a future of interesting work that can be an adequate incentive to stay in school and work hard in securing an education. These career paths should at least be in:

--In all aspects of production—technical, management, and ownership;

--In all aspects of social, economic, and political life: critical thinkers, union organizers and leaders, poets, and artists; community organizers and advocates; managers and civil servants; and political leaders; and

--Those that contribute to building a society that is socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable and restorative

Fourth--A Partnership with the High Road Business Community: We feel that relationships with the emerging High Road sections of the business community are essential for the development of production and the creation of true social and economic wealth for our society.

It is essential for educational leaders and reformers to overcome a simplistic “anti-corporate” stance; to be effective in distinguishing those in the private as well as public sector who have become strategic and tactical allies, as well as opponents; and to develop appropriate policies and actions for both.

There are major companies that are using public education and its institutions in ways that are exploitive and destructive for students and schools. Huge beverage and food companies are marketing and distributing unhealthy foods for students and reinforcing unhealthy habits through lunchrooms and vending machines. For some companies, every aspect of education is seen as one more marketing opportunity with little concern about the actual value of what is being marketed. They need to be stopped.

On the other hand, there are thousands of companies in Chicago like Hudson Precision Products, PK Tool, DeCardy Diecasting, and Winzeler Gear that are anchors for the local economy, the site for meaningful careers with good paying jobs and benefits, who are eager to contribute in many different ways to an all sided High Road educational experience, and are full strategic partners for Austin Polytech.

A contemporary movement for school reform must bring in sections of the business community as strategic partners as well as the labor movement—and particularly the teacher’s unions. This social partnership of labor, business, government, community, and education is fundamental to the broader development agenda and coalition and is certainly central to education and school reform.

In Chicago, we at CLCR found some irony in the fact that some progressive school reformers have embraced non-union charter schools, while the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association has explicitly embraced a partnership with the Chicago Teacher’s Union in the creation of Austin Polytech.

By taking up the issues and challenges of school reform in coalitions like the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council, we can not only bring a new vision of the economy to the table but also a powerful, non-partisan coalition that will increasingly gain the strength to insure fundamental and progressive changes in the education system on all levels.

Fifth--Preparing the Next Generation for Leadership: At the heart of what Austin Polytech is all about is an introduction of a way of thinking that encourages and allows students—particularly from poor and working class communities—to assume leadership positions in our society in all aspects of production and wealth creation, as well as in services, science, retail, technology, government, art, and politics.

Social change is a very complex process involving all sectors of society, yet a clear priority of bringing these perspectives and teaching the essential skills and knowledge to our young people, is a high priority. For us, Austin Polytech is the first step in what we expect to become a major component in the movement for school reform and a new paradigm for economic development and change in the next ten years.

Conclusion

We are both excited by the opportunity as well as sobered by the challenge. Yet for us, there is no other choice at this time. While others wring their hands and watch the slide of communities like Austin to the bottom continue, the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council is mobilizing the talents of the residents and students in one of Chicago’s poorest communities to demonstrate the transforming power of a vibrant manufacturing economy,.

For more information:

Center for Labor and Community Research: www.clcr.org
Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council: www.chicagomanufacturing.org
Austin Polytechnical Academy: www.austinpolytech.com

Dan Swinney
Executive Director
Center for Labor and Community Research
and the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council
773 278 5418, ext. 13
dswinney@clcr.org

[1] On CLCR’s web site: www.clcr.org
[2] Available on CLCR’s web site: www.clcr.org

The Madison Ironman--September 10, 2006

2006-09-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

September 24, 2006

The Ironman

I haven’t written for my blog for months. I was already a little uncomfortable with the personal character of my writings. Too personal. A better focus is my work and thinking on development and economic democracy…. But this seems worth it…for a brief moment…then a focus on the other race...

It’s been an intense journey. I signed up for the Madison Ironman triathlon a year ago in the middle of an already complex and demanding stage of life. It was the right step to help me expand my capacity, strengthen my sense of determination, and put other issues in my life in perspective.

The Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and a marathon. It demands a high level of commitment and work.

A lot of it is solitary, hard physical work. A steady challenge to the will. Adjusting to very early hours, and multiple workouts. As a novice you are always reaching for the new distance, and never gain comfort. You face some very tough workouts that challenge your confidence. You have to develop and then finally trust your plan and accept the uncertainty with confidence—particularly on race day.

But it’s also profoundly social in a way that provided insights into other aspects of my life. By the nature of your objective, you define a small community of people that become a major part of your life for a year including trainers--formal and informal--as well as training partners who simply emerge because you are both occupying the same training space—a pool, a bike course, a gym--with an intensity that invites company and establishes a pleasant transparency. There’s a bond and level of respect that’s powerful.

The benefits to the athlete are obvious. This is the group that makes getting to the workout another day necessary. These are the people that know the need of and provide intense encouragement during all the ups and downs that go with this level of training. These are the people who are the source of information and solutions to the many mysteries of the journey—how far to go this week, how to handle an injury, equipment choices, food and nutrition—and all the little details that come to mean so much in a pretty desperate training program. And then on race day, the spectators and your supporters are essential. They ignite whatever you have left in you to push thru the difficulty and pick up the pace.

On the other hand, it’s not all positive. For some who are around or close to the athlete but not part of training, just the intensity and demands of the training program become the basis for questioning the athlete’s motives and wisdom on many things; or generate frustration because of the competing time demands that replace the normal schedule of family and work.

Rather than detract from the rest of my life, the race added richness and deeper texture. More than most things, there’s a certainty and confidence with this level of work despite the difficulty of the day and journey.

It’s time for the actual race—September 10—in Madison, Wisconsin.

The hard long workouts end three weeks before the race—the taper. You must allow your body to recover, gain strength, and be totally rested before the race. During the taper, you cut volume and the long hours, but maintain intensity until the last few days.

And then, unbelievably, its time to race and I’m in Madison attending a banquet and racer’s meeting on Friday night before the Sunday race. 2,500, mostly young (200 in the race are over 50), are totally focused on the details of what will be a long day for everyone and a very long day for some. Everyone has trained hard for 9-12 months and everyone has put in 7-10 hour days. Everyone is anxious about the weather and the details. And everyone is truly excited and proud to be there in the moment. 1,100 people like me are doing it for the first time. The MC is an experienced race motivator and insures that you are there to finish and that this will be a big moment in your life. 10 or 15 people are doing the race as the 1st triathlon they’ve ever done! One woman lost 111 pounds while training and several lost 80 or more…

Saturday morning is nerve-wracking. There a hundred details of getting your equipment, transition bags, and special needs bags that you can access half-way thru the bike and half-way thru the run organized. All of that--when combined with changing conditions, nerves, confusion, the determination to push back fear and doubt—make for a challenging time. And then you are ready to wait, to eat what you can, and to rest, and then sleep.

Sunday morning…. Up in the dark at 3:45; a windy, cloudy, cool morning with rain in the forcast. Catch the shuttle to get to the race start by 5:15…Get everything placed in the right room, the right rack, the right drop-off spot--details.

But the details are finally complete. There’s no more training, no more last minute task. Its time to race and the feeling is amazing. Anxious but on the side of exhilaration at being there at that moment—but no fear or doubt.

All 2,500 crowd into the lake and tread water waiting for the cannon to start the race. Then it’s thrashing arms, having someone try to swim over you, grabbing your legs, crowding you in every possible way as the crowd moves around the 2.4 mile course. I thought it was funny…and had a relaxed swim that was faster than I expected by about 15 minutes. From the lake, we run thru a group of volunteers who peeled off your wetsuit as fast as you could lay on the ground and then a run up the spiral parking lot into the transition.

The bike is all about starting the marathon run with some reserve. I cycled easily and remembered to cram 500 or so calories and liquids in every half hour. It’s a hilly tough course that I did 5-6 times in training. The training experience is helpful both in terms of strengthening me physically—I handled the steep hills-- and just familiarity. On the major hills and in the towns, the crowds of encouraging supporters are fantastic and funny…The best ones are the outrageous. You really feel like you are in a significant race. You know how deep and genuine their support is for what you are trying to do—and it fuses with your own feelings about what this is all about at this moment. It’s really something.

After seven and a half hours of cool, rainy, windy weather I push again up the spiral parking lot… The best feeling was seeing my son waiting for and then screaming at me and the high five as I entered the transition—again replacing the growing fatigue with exhilaration and a reason to beam. Now there is a certain level of tension about the weather—it has rained all day, it’s cool and breezy and we are heading into the night and an uncertain period. My son again greets my on the way out and almost takes off my arm with his high five....and the marathon starts.

This is really the race. I felt stronger than I expected but remain concerned about the distance. I haven’t run the marathon distance for 10-15 years, but the wise advice is that all the biking has built enough endurance—just keep at it and don’t stop running no matter how you feel. The volunteer crew is now here in force with aid stations every mile or so handing out chicken broth, coke, Gatorade, cookies, fruit, gels and I stop at everyone to cram in more calories to sustain my energy. The race course is a double loop. I’ve remained warily confident thru the first half…and then there’s the test. Lots of racers are starting to have extended walks—acting on what we all feel. I’m pretty sure I’m going to join them—seeking relief from the fatigue and soreness. But the nagging determination to maintain the pace, to finish strong, combined with the reality that I really wasn’t that exhausted yet, and was still smiling in response to the encouragement from the crowd. I simply gutted it out…maintaining a slow but steady pace.

The second half of the marathon brings a sense that the finish line is really getting closer and is in range...increasing determination and confidence. The last quarter mile is slightly up hill alongside the Capitol. I picked up the pace and sprint to the finish line through the crowds of supporters. A friend’s scream of surprise shatters even the lively applause of the crowd. And I cross the line at 14 hours and 28 minutes—a half hour faster than I expected. They put up an individual ribbon to break for all finishers. Two volunteers immediately grab you with firmness to hold you up, put a medal around your neck, congratulate you in the most genuine way, give you broth, walk you—still with their hands underneath your arms—to the photographer…and then they release you to go into the crowds… An amazing experience….

Women's contingent in the Dakar Congress March

2005-12-15T14:44:00.000-08:00

Sunset on Senegal river delta by brett swinney

2005-12-15T04:33:00.001-08:00

senegal mangrove by brett swinney

2005-12-15T04:33:00.000-08:00

Streets in Dakar

2005-12-15T04:30:00.000-08:00

me and Abdou Salam Fall, President of RIPESS

2005-12-15T04:17:00.000-08:00

Congress on the Solidarity Economy--Dakar, Senegal

2005-12-14T14:47:00.000-08:00

In the last two weeks of November, a delegation from Niger traveled 6,000 kilometers in buses on difficult roads to attend the third Congress of RIPESS in Dakar Senegal. RIPESS (http://www.ripess.net/) is the French acronym for the Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of the Solidarity/Social Economy. They were the representatives of one of the 31 African country delegations that joined with 1,200 delegates from 46 other countries from Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and North America to figure out how to globalize solidarity in creating a positive and practical development alternative to the neo-liberal Low Road globalization that’s devastating our communities and our planet.

A small US delegation attended the Congress including myself, my daughter Erica Swinney-- an organizer for Green Action in California as well as Carol and Brett Swinney; Matt Hancock—a CLCR staff member who has been studying cooperative economics in Bologna; Tanya Dawkins, President of Global-Local Links; and Cliff Rosenthal the Executive Director of the National Federation for Community Development Credit Unions and his family. There were 140 Canadians from the whole spectrum of cooperative and community economic development organizations.

It was a big Congress indicating momentum. There was double the number they expected in September. People gathered to exchange experiences, create a vision for development that can compete successfully with what is unfondly referred to as neoliberalism, and to build an organization that truly links the North and South in solidarity. There were 30 different workshops on topics that combined practical and local experience to broader strategic issues. There were caucuses for women, for youth, for rural organizers and others. There were plenaries where speakers and the audience worked together to add greater definition and substance to our alternative vision and engaged challenges from the floor. Women and youth demanded greater representation and galvanized support. Abu Brima—an organizer from Sierra Leone—politely but clearly challenged the delegates from the North to go back home and engage the companies in their own countries who are wreaking havoc in the South and not define “solidarity” simply as a visit to a Southern city like Dakar and charitable financial or verbal support for initiatives in the developing world.

There were continental caucus meetings. Over 70 delegates from Canada, the US, and the Caribbean met to get to know each other and explore ideas of some common work. At an earlier meeting of RIPESS, the North American Network on the Solidarity Economy (NANSE) was formed. It’s a membership network that will organize meetings, promote joint cross-border projects, and build the international network. It will sponsor a conference in Chicago for network members to engage some of the strategic issues and to set the stage for a determined effort against US and Canadian companies engaged in Low Road practices in Sierra Leone—responding to Brima’s challenge. 20% of the delegates to that October 2006 meeting will come from the South.

The Minister for the Social Economy in Belgium announced that they would host the 4th Congress of RIPESS in Brussels in April of 2007—a proposal that reflected the momentum of this network. In the middle of the Congress, we held a two hour march down a major crowded street of Dakar—a hot, electric, and dynamic city—attracting over 8,000 people under our banners of solidarity. An evening forum was held with members of the Canadian, US, and Senegalese labor movement to discuss common concerns.

The term “social economy” or “solidarity economy” isn’t used frequently in the US. But it is around the world and we should start using it in describing our identity. In several countries in Europe and Africa, there is a Minister of the Social Economy that is at the highest echelons of government and on a par equal to the Ministers of Finance or the Ministers of Industry. It is a term embracing the broad range of economic and social activity including that of community-based groups, cooperatives, small companies, buying groups, credit unions, and others who are engaged in market and economic development activity with the purpose of building sustainable communities and societies not just generating a positive financial return for the owners of the enterprise. There is growing interest by activists, development and business leaders, government, academics, and others in the social economy as people look for an alternative approach to development that can compete and contend with low road globalization.

By way of background, the November Congress in Dakar was the third Congress of RIPESS. RIPESS grew out of a joint effort of community development leaders and academics that organized a conference on the Solidarity/Social Economy in Lima, Peru, expecting 40-50 people in 1997. Over 200 people from 21 countries showed up and RIPESS was born from this enthusiasm for North and South solidarity around a development vision. After a follow-up congress in Quebec City in 2001 with almost double the number of participants and countries represented, RIPESS established its central office in Dakar, Senegal.
This will be a network worth watching. It represents a sub-grouping within the broader networks such as the World Social Forum. It will grow and likely be a unique center for those advancing an alternative vision and practice to Low Road globalization. Its leadership is designed to be diverse. The current Board includes 2 people from each continent. It has a broader consultative International Liaison Committee with 6 people from each continent. It is well led and encourages practical exchange as well as critical thinking and debate. It’s also still in its development stage. There are loose ends. There is always the challenge of translation and different languages. But that’s the way all movements begin.

Your organization should join RIPESS and plan on going to Brussels in April 2007. You should also join NANSE—the Canadian, US, and Caribbean network. Dues are just $75 a year. We publish a 4-page supplement in the Canadian Journal Making Waves. And we will be increasingly active.

For more information, contact:

Dan Swinney
Center for Labor and Community Research
Chicago
dswinney@clcr.org

or

Tanya Dawkins
Global-Local Links Project
Miami, FL
dawkinst@mindspring.com

or

Ethel Cote
l'Art du developpment
ethelcote@bellnet.ca
Ontario

or

Mike Lewis
Centre for Community Enterprise
Port Albernie, British Columbia
ccelewis@island.net

Slave Holding Rooms and Door to the Americas--Isle de Goree

2005-12-13T15:17:00.000-08:00

Twilight on Sine-Saloum Delta--by Brett Swinney

2005-12-13T15:16:00.000-08:00

Erica Grinding Millet

2005-12-13T15:12:00.000-08:00

Peanut Farmer in Soum

2005-12-13T15:06:00.000-08:00

Senegal--The Travelogue

2005-12-12T11:52:00.000-08:00

I had the RIPESS Congress (www.ripess.net) on my schedule for a long time, so it seemed like the opportunity to combine the meeting with seeing more of Senegal and bringing my family. I really found Senegal interesting for lots of reasons on my first trip with a friendly, confident people. It would be the first trip for Carol, Erica and Brett and having the structure of the conference, as well as good contacts in a country that was hospitable and forgiving for a newcomer made the idea appealing.

The RIPESS Congress and all associated with it was great and is covered in a separate article.

Dakar is a huge sprawling city of constant motion and continuous negotiations on the sea. Like the travel books say, it has an old and worn colonial infrastructure that is now patched together and expanded to meet the demands and needs of a growing population and serving as a commercial hub for the country. It buzzes in Woloff—the dominant African language of Senegal and French. By the end of the two weeks, we gained confidence through knowledge in negotiating every cab ride, the souvenirs, and our way thru the streets.

We spent almost all of our Dakar time in the sea-side suburb of Almadie. We stayed in the best place—a small 6 room guest house/hotel called Ambry D’Hotes (www.ambre.sn)
It is owned and operated by a Belgian couple—Jean Marie and Nicole. It was clean, cool, and comfortable with a fridge full of beer and drinks, breakfast in the morning, an enclosed yard and garden, and extraordinarily helpful people.

Besides attending the meeting, we spent the time at the beach—a small one near the airport—Plage voyage—the place to spend hours with a boogie board, a Flag—Senegalese beer, and to just sit. We took the ferry to Isle de Goree—the site like many others where slaves were shipped from Africa to the Americas… You can visit the quarters where the men were held, the young girls held, the rebellious one imprisoned—all on the ground floor of a building that had the living and entertaining quarters of the Europeans on the second floor.

We left Dakar for a week on an itinerary created by Jean Marie. We took a taxi—glad we made the decision not to rent a car—for about 140 miles to the start of the Sine-Soloum River Delta—a huge expanse where two or more rivers empty into the Atlantic. There are hundreds of square miles of mangrove, small islands—mostly uninhabited—and winding waterways. Travel is by piroque—big African canoes with either paddles, poles, square sails, or motor. We were dropped off at a ferry that crosses the river to the town of Foundiougene. We walked off the small ferry and were greeted by one of the staff from our hotel—the “Indiana Club.” He led us to the 2-wheeled horse cart, we jumped on—and went a mile down dusty dirt roads to the Indiana Club complex. This is an old complex now owned by a Swiss couple—Paul and Martine. The “club” is completely rustic and charming, with a small pool, thatched roof cabins, the bar, lizards, a feisty young dog Theioff, and electricity that comes on ever so often for maybe a third of the day… Paul and Martine owned a bar and restaurant in a small Swiss town. They came to Africa for the first time seven years ago and bought this place and love it. Martine is a great cook.

The next day, we hopped back on the horse cart and went about 6 miles down no roads to Soum—a typical Senegalese village. We met women harvesting peanuts, kids, the local clinic, a house where the mother was pounding millet into couscous. It was an easy visit with our guide who grew up in this community introducing and translating for us…

In the afternoon, we got into the piroque with a motor and headed to a deserted island in the hot sun….We walked across it, seeing the tracks of pythons and other big snakes that traveled the same space at other times. We saw pink flamingos, pelicans and other birds. The water was teeming with fish and life in general. We stretched out on the sand, drank gin, watched the sun slip to the horizon, tried to pull into our vision the huge sky.

I would go back to the Indiana Club in a minute and spend at least a week—sitting, touring around, fishing, whatever, and being treated so well by Paul and Martine, and not so well by Theioff. See more at www.indianaclub.net

On a windy day, we were picked up by a motor boat and went three hours through the delta to the town of Toubakouta and the resort Kerr Saloum. This is a classic upscale resort in a very poor town own by Belgians. Europeans come in and are gated off from a typically poor community filled with stands selling carvings, masks, etc. for tourists. This is a jumping off place for fishing and other adventures. Certainly comfortable and easy but not interesting… It became the site for scrabble, and Brett became a champion. (Certainly a moment that will be in his memoirs—at a later date).

A cab back to Dakar, a disastrous night trying to deal with cancelled flights, another day sitting in a café overlooking the water in Almadie (settling the nerves) and then home to the snow.

Labor Day, 2005: Breaking Through--Creating the Foundation for Economic Democracy

2005-08-22T18:12:00.000-07:00

My professional life is the Center for Labor and Community Research (CLCR). This is my "soft-ware company" that has been in a 20+ development phase--working on a product that nobody asked for. Now we have our "product" and it seems to have appeal and potential. If that is the case, can we manage the competition in the market and survive growth? But at least true to our strategic perspective, we are contending.

CLCR has been a catalyst for some new initiatives in Illinois and Chicago that represent a breakthrough of a new model for community and economic development as well as a foundation for a potentially powerful social partnership of labor, business, government, and community. Civic, governmental, business, and labor leadership are leading the Race to the Top in contrast to watching our communities be destroyed by the powerful economic forces taking us on the Race to the Bottom.

In the last month, the top business, labor, governmental, and educational leaders in Chicago, at a meeting in City Hall, launched the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance (CMR)—a long-term initiative for Chicago to become the world leader in modern, high value-added manufacturing. They began the CMR Council and steps are now underway to give life and depth to this campaign. CLCR’s vision of a High Road/High Performance manufacturing economy is the foundation for this initiative. As Chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, Wayne Watson commented, “We have to have an educational and economic infrastructure that is superior to Germany, Denmark, and India, and not be satisfied with out-competing Indiana;”

Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan, in joining the CMR challenged us to create a public high school that reflects the ambitions and partnership of the CMR. CLCR led a team that submitted an application to create the Austin Polytechnical Academy—a high school academy in an African American West Side Chicago community that has been devastated by deindustrialization. This “small school” of 400-500 students will have a direct relationship with high performance manufacturing companies in the region and be able to provide work exposure, internships, apprenticeships, and access to careers in all aspects of manufacturing;

The Department of Planning and Development is exploring a partnership with Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s South Side—a church with 15,000 members in the African American community and with a well-known prophetic pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright—to create an Early Warning Business Development System based on CLCR’s model. This is the new kind of partnership required by the vision of CMR; and

This Chicago initiative is a product of the state-wide partnership between the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association representing 4,300 manufacturing companies and the Illinois AFL-CIO representing 1 million union members and CLCR that has been developing a state-wide campaign over the last 9 months that seeks to make Illinois the destination place for global high performance manufacturing.

Our approach—developed in the course of our 20+ year history in the trenches of the economy and working with specific firms and communities—is premised on ending poverty through promoting sustainable economic growth based on a High Road stakeholder vision. This is in contrast to the Low Road demand for the highest return in the shortest possible time for shareholders no matter what the social impact. Defining and creating a High Road social partnership of labor, business, government, and community around this approach is central to CLCR's mission and experience. We have been a leader in:
1. Showing the causal relationship between the growth of poverty and the de-industrialization, particularly, of urban areas;
2. Proving that the decline of industry is not inevitable and out of the control of local communities. There is a way within reach that can dramatically reduce poverty on a significant scale through making good work and jobs available particularly in inner-city communities
3. Advancing policy and program that retains and develops the manufacturing economy in ways that are both competitive in the market as well as consistent with our social and moral values; and
4. Winning over the major institutions in Chicago and some of the key powerful state organizations from business, government, labor, and community to embrace and apply our approach.

This framework becomes a “barn door” for a social movement with vision and the desire to influence the way our society and its economy operates. This approach is clearly replicable in other communities.

In the next couple of days, you can find detailed descriptions of these initiatives at www.clcr.org

The End of the Season and the Beginning of the Next

2005-08-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve never worked harder athletically nor had more ambitious goals—athletically—than this year. Since January, I’ve trained to win my age group in the Chicago Triathlon—a race on August 28 that now has 7,600 participants, and probably 60 or so in my age-group. And my goal is reasonable considering that in the last couple of years I placed 7^th then 5^thin my age group. This year, I’ve had 3 firsts, and one fourth (I’ll explain) in my races. So with pretty consistent disciplin, I’ve run with a mix of tempo, interval, and long distance. I’ve been swimming in pools and in the lake. And I’ve been on my bike with some easy short rides as well as in groups that successfully challenged me to extend my distance to 80+ miles and pick up the pace. And then there’s the gym and a demanding trainer with a totally positive attitude that has really set the standard for all of this a couple of times a week.

It has all become the framework from which I look at everything else in my life—personally, professionally, and politically. Finally, it’s all about the core. And this isn’t the abs….its the attitude and determination.

Personally, the challenge is lurking wistfulness. Professionally, I’ve essentially created what could best be understood as a “software” company and been in a twenty-five year development stage—working on a product nobody understands or is asking for, but confident that what I'm creating has wide use and appeal once perfected and popularly understood. And now as I take my product to market, I face the challenge of competition from the mundane, as well as the challenge of growth—the business equivalent of adolescence. And politically, the professional description is apt.

I’ve never worked so hard in all the aspects of life. The easiest to understand and describe was a race three weeks ago-- the Racine, Wisconsin Half-Ironman. This was double my longest tri—1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run on a day when the temperature reached 105 and there were 30 mile per hour wind gusts. I took off my number three times trying to quit the race, but finally realized it was one mile at a time and I would make it, and that was worth it. And 1,000 others that day did the same thing. I ate and drank everything on the course, walked, and thanked all of the volunteers that hosed down the racers with their garden hoses. It really does take a village. And I enjoyed it all and like everyone else--described it as "brutal." After 7 hours, it was over and I went home to rest for a week.

But the persistence still seems worthwhile and better than the other options. Success in overcoming the big challenges in all the aspects of life seems possible. The end result seems well worth the work. And why not…

August 28 will simply be a measure of effort made, who shows up, and an affirmation that the journey is the most important and fulfilling no matter what the result.

Solidarity/Social Economy Networks

2005-08-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

August 2, 2005

I wanted to introduce you to two networks that I have been active in over the last three years, and seek your assistance in introducing them to the broader activist community in the US.

Like most of the things we do, these networks are in the process of becoming…but I think they have promise and already constitute an interesting and constructive venue for building the movement around an alternative vision of development and plan of action that can compete with the neo-liberal global strategy.

RIPESS (www.ripess.net) is the French acronym for the Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of the Solidarity/Social Economy. It grew out of a joint effort of community development leaders and academicians from Montreal and the same from South America. In 1997, they organized a conference on the Solidarity/Social Economy in Lima, Peru, expecting your typical 40-50 people. Over 200 people from 21 countries showed up and RIPESS was born. Due to the enthusiasm for North and South solidarity around a development vision, they committed to building their network. They had a follow-up congress in Quebec City in 2001 with almost double the participants and countries represented. At that Congress, leadership for RIPESS was elected and the central office was established in Dakar, Senegal. They have been active in the World Social Forums at Porto Alegre and Mumbai.

I was recruited to be on the International Liaison Committee and have attended meetings in both Montreal and Dakar. This network is serious about building the international movement around the social economy. Their members have strong ties in local universities; in the community development field as well as in the networks that serve the informal economy in their countries. They are eager to have increased contact and exchange with their American colleagues.

They are now actively recruiting for their Congress in Dakar. The Congress will be a rich experience of exchange between organizations as well as a fascinating introduction to West Africa and Senegal. I've included the description of the Congress and the Call for Workshops. I think you and your organization would find the experience incredibly rewarding.

I'm going and taking my family. My first experience in Dakar was incredible both because of the interesting character of the country but, more importantly, because of the excellent access our hosts-the current leadership of RIPESS-had with grass root organizations, the business community, NGOs, and government officials. We saw a number of very interesting projects during our visit and created lasting relationships with those who share our commitment for a global solidarity economy.

Out of this broader network, a Canadian/US group was formed last year at the national Community Economic Development conference in Trois Riviere, Quebec. This is the North American Network on the Solidarity Economy (NANSE). It is committed to increasing the strategic dialogue and joint action between leaders in community economic development and the social economy in our two countries. For example, CLCR's program, Food Chicago now has a sister project in Vancouver with the Specialty Food Producers Cooperative and we have had two productive meetings and regular exchanges. The national journal of the Canadian CED movement, Making Waves, dedicates four pages each issue to news and ideas that are evolving from this network. It is also dedicated to organizing participation in the Dakar conference.

Here's a link. www.cedworks.com/international.html

If you go to this link, scroll to the bottom of the page and there's a link to the current issue of Making Waves and an article I wrote to stimulate discussion.

I would encourage you to look into these networks, to consider becoming involved and supportive, and to pass on the information about them to your various networks whose interests overlap with these, and who could contribute to as well as benefit from increased contact with those in the South and North working on the alternative model.

I would be more than happy to answer any questions you might have. I am also very interested in getting the word out-so any way you could help me would be deeply appreciated.

Dan Swinney
Center for Labor and Community Research
www.clcr.org
dswinney@clcr.org
773 278 5418, ext. 13

Swinney article in "Making Waves"

2005-07-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

There's a new article by me in the Canadian journal for community economic development arguing that the movement for economic democracy needs to get out of the margins and into the mainstream. What do you think?

http://www.cedworks.com/files/pdf/free/THR_2-1_spring05.pdf

New Impressions of Emilia Romagna

2005-07-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

New Impressions of Emilia Romagna--a Global Leader in Innovative Approaches to Development and Economic Democracy

In the 1940s, the Emilia Romagna region in northern Italy—Bologna is its center—was one of the poorest regions in Europe. Today, according to Bob Williams, of the Van City Capital Corporation in Vancouver:

“There are 90,000 manufacturing enterprises in the region, surely one of the highest densities per capita in the world! Small, medium, enterprises (SME’s) predominate. One person in twelve is self-employed or owns a small business. In recent years the region has produced the highest GDP per capita in the country, and it now ranks with the ten best in Europe…2/3 of the citizens of Bologna belong to a co-op…45% of the GDP is produced by co-ops…(and) 85% of the social services in Bologna are delivered by co-ops…”

Today it’s a fascinating web of cooperatives, small manufacturing companies, innovative social service programs, and a complex and dynamic partnership between business, labor, and government. It’s a region that was governed by the Italian Communist Party for over thirty years, and still has strong labor, social and business organizations and leaders that identify with the left, as well as a strong Catholic tradition among those sectors, and a smaller presence of similar companies, organizations, and networks that identify with the right.

I with 16 other American and Canadian cooperative practitioners just spent 5 intense days in Emilia Romagna studying this phenomena with the support of the Cooperative Charitable Trust Forum of Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was looking at this region to understand it relevance and importance for those who are looking for a model for development that is practical, has scale, and consistent with social justice values. This was my second visit and study tour. After the first, I had more questions than I started with, and was skeptical. This time, I got it. This region needs to go to the top of the list for those in the developed and developing world creating the competitive alternative development model.

v Some of Emilia Romagna’s manufacturing companies that are world class high performance companies are cooperatives. Other private companies and cooperatives work together in flexible networks that combine a number of smaller firms into joint projects. And government has played a powerfully positive role in creating sector-based service centers that assist smaller companies in being competitive in the global economy;

v Coop Italia is the top retailer surpassing giants like the French equivalent of Wal-Mart—Carrefour—in sales. It has 6 million owner/members, 55,000 employees, 1,200 stores, and €11 Billion in sales;

v Cooperatives are legally required to put profits into an “indivisible fund” that will sustain the company for generations and can’t be taken by the worker owners;

v The cooperatives have their own huge insurance company—Unipol, large investment funds such as Coop Fund to provide loan and equity to start-up companies, and very sophisticated support organizations such as Lega Coop that provide a full-range of technical, educational, and financial services to insure the success of cooperatives;

v “Social Cooperatives” provide various services to the mentally and physically disabled—“privatizing” what historically were state services but to cooperatives that are frequently preferred by professionals because they permit creativity and the delivery of high quality services and work experience for the disabled; and

v Italian cooperatives are expanding internationally, and the cooperative movement is assisting the growth of cooperatives in both the developing as well as the developed world. Recently the Coop Fund and a large cooperative of restaurants committed $500,000 in debt and equity, as well as technical assistance to a group of workers in New York City affiliated with the labor-based Restaurant Occupation Center who are starting a restaurant cooperative in Manhattan.

Those committed to economic democracy and sustainable development need to learn more about this experience. See Coop Italia power point, Bob William’s full article, and a great description by David Thompson on the region at www.clcr.org

2005-07-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

Members of Social Cooperative Bindery for disabled in Imola, Italy

2005-07-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

Touring the Riunite wine cooperative

Economic Democracy: Emilia Romagna

2005-06-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

Emilia Romagna region of Northern Italy--Bologna, Parma, Imola--after WWII, one of the most backward rural areas in Europe--now the 10th or so most prosperous region in Europe. It's a center for an effective but very complex devolving partnership of business, labor, and government. 8 million people and 60,000 manufacturing companies. Flexible networks, service centers, cooperatives producing 40% of the product of the region....

It's an intellectual center for economic democracy in the Economics Department of the University of Bologna, in various institutes, and in--as Prof. Zamagni says--the DNA of the people.

It's a model that those interested in sustainable development must know about and understand--easier said than done.

I'm going there for a week on the 10th for the second time with colleagues from the Charitable Trust Forum to meet with business, labor, governmental, and intellectual leaders to learn more.... I'll be writing about this in the days to come.

Dave Van Ronk--listen

2005-06-08T17:08:00.000-07:00

I heard Van Ronk's songs within my first month of my exposure to folk music and the blues at the Alma College in the early 1960s--cultural center of Michigan's lower peninsula, and maybe of the world. He was a favorite of an incredibly talented group of guitarists, singers, and poet/artists gathered at this non-descript small college (how, i still wonder about it--marty kearns, bruce macdonald, larry haskell, david wright, david sweeney, jacqui harper...all amazing people gathered for some strange reason...anyhow) Since then, I've always bought his albums, went to see him perform when he made it to Chicago, tried to play a few of his songs as part of my feeble mix on my own guitar... i just really liked him. I was sad when he died of cancer relatively young in 2002.

I recently read, "The Mayor of MacDougal Street", Dave's autobiography. It's an incredible book for anyone who is genuinely curious about the roots of the white community's interest in "folk" music and country blues from the voice of one who was their at the beginning. Van Ronk was in the Village in the mid-50s. No high school degree, but an honesty, irreverence, passion for music. First jazz on a banjo (!) and then on the guitar. And always a sharp, left, political eye. He describes the and his beginnings with photographic memory.

I used to/and still do idolize Pete Seeger and Van Ronk takes him (and the left and progressive movement) on as a pristine almost pure musical talent, but also a "stalinist" who couldn't sing a song that didn't have a political purpose. Same for Woody Guthrie who had "This machine kills fascists" scrawled on his guitar. Van Ronk writes, "Among Progressives of the time, personal expression in music was discouraged. Art was considered to be a tool...As odd as it may seem to us now, many of these people were embrarrassed to write a love song, because the Spanish Civil War was going on, or the steelworkers were on strike...while the songwriters around the CP had some magnificent moments, they were unable to exploit the full range of their experience, and their compositions ended up being as obsessively focused on one subject (politics) as the commercial music they despised was on another (romantic love)." Van Ronk's songs are about love, humor, compassion, empathy, wild hard living, total fun and exuberance...and this is another point where words aren't really enough or worth it.

Dylan lived on and off his couch for the first year in NYC, and stole his version of "House of the Rising Sun" for his first record. He describes how the southern country blues singers emerged, the depth of the culture of a small and very diverse group of people in the US, the serious musicians and writers, the superficial, the stumbling commercial efforts, and the beginning of the wave that became common knowledge and myth.

Really worth reading....

The latest cd I bought has "mean world blues" and "mack the knife" and it cuts at me...

Wal-Mart, the Klan, and Community Benefits Agreements

2005-06-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

The standard approach to Wal-Mart is "Let's negotiate a community benefit agreement/CBA to guarantee jobs for our specific local community, or support for another one of our local program," or let's organize the workers into a union. Everyone knows they are bad guys...but what are we going to do about it?

Wal-Mart has a business plan that is based on predatory Low Road practices that will leave the community worse off after a number of years than it was when Wal-Mart entered. That has been proven again and again, and presented in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Business Week.

To negotiate a settlement with Wal-Mart that doesn't include changing their business plan to bring it within reach of acceptable business practices needs to be seen as similar to negotiating with the Klan. Yes, you can get some benefits for some of your constituency, yet it's at the expense of the local and regional economy. A negotiated settlement for a few is the cost of doing business that destroys the many from Wal-Mart's perspective..

The social movement needs to set higher standards....a good idea if it really wants to be something more than marginal....

We should launch our own large scale cooperatives owned by employees and consumers that can compete with Wal-Mart on cost and variety of goods, and build the local community rather than destroy it... This has been done in Spain, in Italy, in Canada. It can be done here.

Don't you think it's time we did something bigger that was really inspirational rather than groveling for a few crumbs?

Check out www.clcr.org for more detail.

Galena Triathlon

2005-05-22T05:06:00.000-07:00

It was what I wanted it to be. I dropped my work deadlines and left the office early to avoid the late night/last minute panic that can ruin even the best planned days...

I got to Apple Canyon Lake--the start and headquarters--in time to soak it in. There was still a relaxing warm sun. The lake felt warm despite the hysteria that suggested small icebergs, and the swim course really looked short. Some confidence. The start of the bike portion is a steep hill up--a hard start that seemed threatening. Then I drove the bike portion in my car. Hills but fun--particularly the long and steep down-hills that would mean real speed and adrenalin. How fast would I go? The last half flowed down a long ridge towards Galena and into the park that would be the start of the run. It was easy to anticipate the exhileration I would feel. More confidence. And then to the motel with time to silently work through all the details, make the morning list, and sleep.

In the bike transition, I met my competition as we set up our bikes, our shoes, and hung out. They were all more experienced than me--each with at least a handful of half-ironmans and ironmans--triple my longest race. All good spirited and there for the right reasons--enjoying the journey, the challenge, understating their competitive spirit; and all with fast, light racing bikes. Well, maybe I would be lucky to place--and be satisfied that the competition was better than I had expected with some men who simply worked harder at it than me.

I did a practice ride up the intimidating hill--not that bad.

As usual, it always seems like it will be a long time until its time for your wave...then suddenly you are bunched by the water's edge, the horn howls, and you are swimming as fast as you can in a small thrashing crowd. The water is colder than I expected but not a breath taker. Off the shore, the anticipated murky water turns clear and I can see bass, suprisingly calm, just below the churning pack. I'm have a solid position in the pack and my time is better than I expected. At the transition area, all the bikes of my group are still racked--a pleasant and motivating surprise.

The bike portion was all I expected. I felt strong going up and exhilerated as I tucked as tight as possible probably hitting 35 mph going down the longest hills. The sun was hidden by clouds and there was no wind--the best kind of day for a race. I constantly gained in the pack...

The run started with a steep half-mile hill and i kept at the best running pace I could as i passed more of the walkers, looking forward to the last downhill half-mile of the race. My pace was strong and steady--better than I have felt in most races.. I looked for my group and didn't see them until I was headed back on the out and back course, and they were safely behind. I was pleasantly confident but not certain.

I won my age group with a substantial margin and a good time in general. My small community enjoyed it all. The race was fun, the accomplishment made the work worthwhile, and the journey continues. We waited in the cooling afternoon rain to get the small ribbon and medals, and I biked back to my van with all my gear from the day packed in the plastic back balanced on my handlebars.

The day reminded me of my strength as I sifted over the other aspects of my life in the drive back home.

On the Road to Galena

2005-05-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow evening, I'll drive to Galena, Illinois for their Triathlon. It's a sprint distance: a few hundred yards swim, a 16 mile bike ride, and something less than a 5 mile run. The swim will be in a cold, probably murky country lake. The bike ride and run will be hilly--in the stretch of hills that going west will fold over bluffs to the Mississippi River valley. It's supposed to be a beautiful day, and I'm certain the area will be beautiful woodlands, and the spirits of the race organizers and community high and encouraging. This is another small chapter in my determination to win my age group in the Chicago Tri in August.

I'm in the middle of my training. I've taken it pretty seriously--working in the gym with guidance, pressure (c'mon Dan) and inspiration from my trainer; running in the morning with the ever changing remnants of the Psycho Geezers; trying to make it to the Monday and Wednesday morning swimming groups; spinning at LSAC and aspiring to make the Judson rides on Saturday morning; and the rest--more protein, less alcohol, some fat, just more attention to it all.

This is the aspect of my life that I have the most confidence in....my hard work will generate most of the results I seek. I've worked as hard at my professional life and my personal life. With both, I'm hopeful. Both of these other aspects are intertwined with other people in ways I can only influence but not control; other people who bring challenges to me that I understand and I don't understand; and other people who bring opportunities to me that I want as well as resist.

In Galena, I will love the cold swim in the murky lake; I will listen to my hard breaths when I work to maintain my cadence on the hills; I will push hard to the finish line; and I will find out where I placed. Galena will put everything else in perspective, for the moment.

2005-05-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

Chicago Triathlon August 2003

2005-05-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

Me, Thobile Yanta from South African labor movement, and Jethro Head of Bakery Workers Union at conference in Durban, South Africa

2005-05-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

On the way to Mt. Josephine, BC

2005-05-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

Me in Cinque Terra, Italy

2005-05-19T03:39:00.000-07:00

British Columbia 2/05

2005-05-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

Erica (top middle) in political discussion with friends.

2005-05-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

Dave Henry Lodge area--the uptrack 2/05

2005-05-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

Omineca River, British Columbia 10/05

Speech on Globalization and the Market--Knoxville

2005-05-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

May 13, 2005

Dan Swinney

Center for Labor and Community Research (CLCR)

dswinney@clcr.org

www.clcr.org

Presentation at Global Studies Association

This is the outline of a speech presented at the annual meeting of the Global Studies Association at the University of Tennessee on May 14, 2005. There are greater details on all of the stories on CLCR’s web site www.clcr.org and particularly in the paper, “Building the Bridge to the High Road.”

Globalization and Market Power

It’s a privilege to speak to you this morning and to be part of this conference.

1. Introduction:

A. Main Points:

1) The Global Studies Association is a very important network of intellectuals that can have enormous impact in our intellectual communities and, in turn, our society;

2) I believe we are in a very volatile period internationally and domestically that has the potential for great change—either positive and progressive, or dangerous, destructive and reactionary.

3) To ensure that we move in a progressive way requires a social movement that has and fights for a contemporary transformative model for global change.

4) I’m going to argue for globalization—a High Road movement for international sustainable development that can successfully compete with the dominant Low Road and unsustainable model.

5) This model requires that we must contend for our program in the market as well as in the state and in civil society.

6) Our movement’s failure to organize and contend in the market is the main reason our movement for change remains marginal.

B. Personal Learning Curve: My life has fortunately spanned two periods that witnessed a growing international activist movement for fundamental change—the 1960s and today. My experience in the activist movement of the 1960s laid the foundation to what I believe today.

Now, like then, it wasn’t difficult to find something to oppose. There was the right moment for militancy and action—for resistance—whether it was against the war, the draft, the legal and cultural props of white and male supremacy, illegal repression, and the exploitation and abuse of working class people.

I had the fortunate opportunity to meet with members of the international community as well as the best domestic leaders of the civil rights movement in our country. The veterans were all praiseworthy of young activists like myself, but sober in their advice. The most profound lessons that I learned from my exchanges with the older generation was:

v If we were really serious about our opposition to racial oppression and these kinds of wars, we needed to change the fundamental policies of the US;

v Big changes require the support of the majority of people and that can take decades to build with patient and persistent work around a positive program the majority of people can come to support—and take risk to achieve; and

v There’s no short cut.

I’ve spent the last 35 years pursuing those objectives of fundamental change. Today, the need for fundamental change couldn’t be clearer as we see the devastating impact of neo-liberal economic and political strategies throughout the world and in our own country on people, their communities, and the environment.

In other parts of the world, resistance has and is being converted to system change. Yet in our own country, the social movement remains marginal despite deepening anxiety among the majority of our people. We see this in the movement against the war and globalization, in the environmental movement, in the electoral arena, in the struggle for democracy, and certainly in the labor movement.

C. The liberal and left influences that have marginalized our movement: I believe that a major reason for this marginalization lies in the powerful intellectual influence in the liberal and left community that:

v Is comfortable in being only opposed to the current model of development but fails to get about the work of creating a competitive model for sustainable development that is consistent with our vision of social justice. Finally, the mass of people are only willing to organize and take the risks that go with change if there is a practical, comprehensive, and positive alternative that is available; and

v Is an intellectual and liberal left that is uncomfortable with the market—seeing it only as the arena for the corrupt and greedy rather than a required terrain for our work.

This morning, I want to take you through my learning curve that has led me to believe that:

v The market is not simply synonymous with low-road capitalism;

v The simplistic generalization that sees the “corporation” as the enemy is the most destructive intellectual construct in our movement. It denies us critical alliances and diverts us from information and work that are fundamentally important and productive in building a competitive model to the neo-liberal policies. Of course, we have corporate enemies that must exposed and blocked; but there are important tactical and strategic corporate allies in the business community that we must align with and bring into our movement; and

v As a movement for change, we must prove our ability to successfully contend in the market as well as the state and civil society.

With the advice of the veterans of the late 60s, I made the decision to not attend law school, but to take a job in a factory to learn about productive work and how to organize working people—an obvious pre-requisite if you wanted to bring about system change. I spent the next 13 years as a production worker and in-plant organizer—8 of those as a machinist and union leader at Taylor Forge in Cicero, IL.

2. The Taylor Forge/GW story: I started working at Taylor Forge as a machinist in 1975 and organized United Steelworker Local 8787 in 1978. Taylor Forge was a healthy, family-owned company that was committed to the company and industry. Taylor was an inventor and we used many of the machines he invented in the company. There was a decent relationship to the workforce and the company was generally well-run. In the late 1960s, he sold the company to Gulf + Western (G+W). G+W was a pioneer in developing what are relatively common Low Road business strategies today. Their business plan was “milking the cash” cow or operating essentially like a slum-lord in the housing market. They took a healthy company and milked it dry—closing department by department as the impact of their refusal to adequately invest became apparent. In the course of their destruction of the company, they complained about foreign competition and labor costs and came to our local union asking for concessions in our wages and benefits. They closed the company in 1982.

3. We Formed CLCR in reaction to the crisis in manufacturing in 1982. Cicero—where the G+W was located—had lost 50% of its jobs in 6 years; and in the 1980s, Chicago saw 3,000 of it 7,000 factories close and a loss of 150,000 family supporting jobs. The huge social crisis resulting from the de-industrialization of our cities and society (now seen as “out-sourcing”) was seen as inevitable, due to “globalization” and “new technology” and beyond our control. The founders of CLCR knew that fundamental changes were taking place in the economy and society, that both the left and the right were equally superficial in their understanding of what was taking place; and that you needed an in-depth analysis based on solid research to determine what could be done for labor and community organizations in this environment, if anything. From being a union leader at Taylor Forge, I learned that opposition and accusation wasn’t enough to lead. In the crisis climate of the 1980s and today, workers will only follow leaders who knew the facts, not just depend on generalizations or slogans.

We are a not-for-profit consulting and research organization in Chicago. We work for unions, community coalitions, local government, businesses and business associations in very practical projects to save jobs and companies, as part of our broader commitment to develop a practical competitive development model compatible to our commitment to social justice.

We are small—anchored in Chicago, but work nationally, and internationally. Many of the components of what constitutes our “model” have been learned from international experience. Our manifesto, Building the Bridge to the High Road, presents our perspective in greater detail and can be found on our web site.

4. CLCR’s Learning curve in the Market

A. We needed to deeply understand what was going on in particular companies and communities to come to our own decision as the basis for proposing action, if any;

B. Looked at hundreds of companies in crisis;

1) We saw some that should close—such as slide-rule manufacturer—a product that was no longer in demand;

2) On the other hand, we saw many companies that really didn’t need to close.

C. Small Companies

1) Bankers Print was a small full-service printing company on Chicago’s South Side. Its founder, Carl Wilson was in his 80s, had cancer, and no one in the family to take over the company. We were introduced to the 20 employees; did a feasibility study on the viability and value of the company; and helped the employees buy it at that price. The company and jobs were saved. Wilson got a fair price for the company, unions preserved their dues base, and we had an interesting example of worker owners reflecting a form of economic democracy;

2) Study on Small Companies: In 1989, CLCR did a study of 800 small companies with less than 100 employees for the Economic Development Commission of Chicago and found that among those companies with a principle 55 years or older, 40% of these companies had no apparent successor and were at risk of closing. We also found that less than ½ of 1% of manufacturing companies had African American or Hispanic owners—a deep and still continuing example of discrimination that’s destructive to our whole society.

3) Market Solution: CLCR worked with both groups of employees as well as Black and Latino entrepreneurs to by companies at risk due to succession problems. Clearly there was a solution in the market place to save companies, jobs, unions, fight discrimination, and promote genuine development that was significant and more democratic than the old way.

D. Sharpsville Quality Products: Successful employee buyouts didn’t always happen without conflict. At a steel company in the Pittsburg area, union members were given three days notice plans to close the factory where they worked. They occupied the company for 42 days, and in the course of the occupation did a feasibility study with financial support of the local religious community, and successfully purchased and operated the company.

E. Mondragon: Our experiences in employee ownership led us to important international models such as the Mondragon industrial cooperatives in the Basque Region in Spain, a story that reinforced our confidence in a market-based strategy. Mondragon is:

1) Not just a handful of worker-owned companies but a network that has become the leading edge of the industrial economy in Spain employing more than 65,000 people in more than 100 companies.

2) Introducing technology such as robotics that expanded employment through expanding market share rather than cutting jobs.

3) Anchored in manufacturing but model is also established in retail—successfully competing with chains like Wal-Mart;

4) Provides an anchor for a range of community institutions including schools, housing, social services and banks.

F. Large Companies: We studied a number of large Chicago companies and found that the emerging Low Road trend was becoming a common practice and doing enormous destruction to our larger companies. As with G+W, it wasn’t the “market” or “globalization” per se that was closing companies but a particular business strategy that could be challenged by another business strategy in the market.

1) Brach Candy Company. In 1987, this relatively healthy company on Chicago’s West Side employed 3,700. It was purchased by Swiss billionaire, Klaus Jacobs. In two years, Jacobs laid-off 1,000 people; lost $100 million; fired his top management team five times; and put the company into chaos. CLCR was introduced to the crisis by local community organizations. Through research, we determined that it was a potentially viable company; we created a partnership of the community, Teamsters union, and past management to try and save the company. The first effort was to try to purchase the company as a management/employee buyout. Jacobs refused to sell. He then tried to break the union during a contract fight. CLCR successfully led a coalition that supported the union and prevailed with a contract that effectively blocked the Low Road approach by Jacobs.

Following the campaign, we proactively launched the Candy Institute, later expanding it to become Food Chicago to demonstrate the way that local companies could be retained through High Road business strategies including employee training, the creation of incubators for micro and small companies, improved services, and supportive city policy.

G. Industrial Decline Not Inevitable: With this type of experience in small and large companies, CLCR is completely confident that local business, labor, community organizations with government support could have saved 80% of the companies and jobs that were lost during the 1980s and ‘90s.

1) With timely intervention that confronted the emerging and powerful Low Road trend in business with an alternative business strategy that preserved production but was guided by our values; and

2) Approaches that addressed the gaps inherent in traditional and passive approaches to development through energized and creative efforts by labor, community, and effective government.

5. Power in the Market Place: Completely confident that our intervention in the market is creating the conditions and alliances that can lead to significant changes in development strategy that will:

A. Contest sharply with the Low Road;

B. Build the capacity and sophistication and breadth of the labor movement.

C. Winning over significant sections of the business, governmental, and civic community.

D. Illinois Manufacturers’ Association and Illinois AFL-CIO Partnership: Even our modest success helped set the stage for state-wide project with Illinois Manufacturers Association representing 4,300 manufacturing company owners and IL AFL-CIO representing 1 million workers on state economic policy that:

1) Embraced by the two most powerful organizations in production and in politics in the state;

2) Is anchored in starting the very practical steps of building an economy that is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable;

3) Is dramatically overcoming narrow political barriers—Republican, Democrat, Independent;

4) Sets the stage for labor, community, and environmental organizations to be influential and even leaders in the process of wealth creation;

5) Has scale—in a large state that can be a stepping stone to national influence; and

6) This project is in the earliest stages of development, but it’s a start.

6. Lessons from our experience:

A. The market is not simply synonymous with capitalism and particularly Low Road capitalism. The market is an achievement of human civilization that both predates capitalism and will persist for a long time even if capitalism is replaced by another system;

B. For the social movement, the market has too often been one-sidedly, simplistically and tragically viewed as only a terrain for Low Roaders, and this abstention unnecessarily cedes to them a critical arena for production, defining work, technological progress, knowledge, democracy, among other things;

C. The most powerful trend in business is the Low Road trend in business—this creates crisis;

D. But the Low Road trend also opportunity and the requirement for a social movement if to be willing to recognize the limits of strategies focused only on wealth distribution: jobs, wages, benefits; and the need and then necessity to intervene in the wealth creation process and the defense and development of our productive capacity whenever and wherever possible—now is the time for a change in social relations of production. This approach has broad practical appeal if framed and advanced in the right way;

E. The recognition that there is also a High Road trend in business that can be in tactical and strategic alliance with us and including managers, entrepreneurs, owners, investors, and consultants. It is always better to have fewer enemies and more friends;

F. The ability to fight in the market based on a positive alternative has led to successful mobilizations of people and the building of sustained coalitions;

G. Success in the market has increased the strength of our efforts to influence the state.

H. This is the type of transformative program that can energize mass political and electoral organizations as well; and

I. We must be an international movement for High Road global development that takes inspiration from the best international models, that builds solidarity, and that creates joint global projects.

7. Conclusion:

Our world and our country are in a period of great transition. I’m genetically optimistic but not naïve. This is a period of great danger and can be the beginning of decades of darkness; or this could be a moment of explosive progressive change.

It really depends on us and our willingness to develop and contend with a program that represents an alternative model of development. And that requires contending in the market as well as the state, as we transform the character of our movement to represent the interests of a majority of our people—not a movement that skirmishes on the margins of our society.

2005-05-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Smithers area, British Columbia 10/05