Photo: Worker-Owner at MCC Coop

The Mondragon Alliance:

The Goal Is to Create Jobs

By Putting People First

By Rob Witherell

United Steel Workers

Keynote Speech at Western Mass.

Jobs with Justice Conference

March 6, 2010

—  An official unemployment rate of 10%

—  A real rate of unemployment and underemployment of 17%

—  Millions of good paying jobs lost, including 2 million manufacturing jobs in the past year alone

—  Stagnating wages

—  Frozen pensions and inadequate 401(k) plans

—  Sky rocketing health insurance costs

—  Millions of people without health insurance

—  Millions of people falling into poverty

—  Millions of people receiving food stamps to feed their families

—  Millions of people homeless and millions more struggling to stay in the homes they have

In the middle of the worst recession we’ve seen in the past 70 years, conservative politicians in Washington, DC are defiantly putting the purity of their ideals before the reality of the painful consequences.  Congress is not a high school debate club.  People need help, not talking points.

Wall Street executives, who were part of creating this crisis, were the first ones with their hands out, asking for help from Main Street taxpayers.  We gave them billions and billions of dollars.  As panic began to recede, they gave some of those billions back rather than have to live with the few strings attached.  These fat cat executives are trying to avoid accountability and transparency, regardless of the cost.  The millions of dollars in bonuses being paid again to executives, while insulting to the rest of us, are less harmful to our economy and our communities than the fact that little has changed in how Wall Street works.  Years of increasing deregulation have left us with a Wild West of finance where anything goes. Continue reading Steelworkers Elaborate on Worker-Ownership Jobs Effort →

What the Labor Battle

at Hugo Boss Means for

Our Economic Future

By Robert Creamer
The Huffington Post

Feb. 8, 2010 – It’s the red carpet season in Hollywood. That means high-end apparel companies like Hugo Boss are promoting iconic celebrities to wear their clothing line at the Oscars and other award ceremonies.

But for the workers who make these suits in Cleveland, Ohio, it’s a season of a different shade — that of the pink slip. And the result is an iconic labor battle that is emblematic of many of the most important issues facing our economy.

Just after Christmas, Germany-based Hugo Boss messengered pink slips to the 400 employees at its Cleveland, Ohio manufacturing facility. The employees were told that they were being laid off and the plant was being closed.

Hugo Boss was not closing the facility because it was losing money — or, for that matter, because the company was in bad financial condition. Quite the contrary. Continue reading We Know This Story: Cleveland Clothing Workers Getting the Shaft →

Photo: High-tech Machine Tools from MCC

‘One Worker, One Vote:’
US Steelworkers to Experiment
with Factory Ownership,
Mondragon Style

By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue

Oct. 27, 2009–The United Steel Workers Union, North America’s largest industrial trade union, announced a new collaboration with the world’s largest worker-owned cooperative, Mondragon International, based in the Basque region of Spain.

News of the announcement spread rapidly throughout the communities of global justice activists, trade union militants, economic democracy and socialist organizers, green entrepreneurs and cooperative practitioners of all sorts. More than a few raised an eyebrow, but the overwhelming response was, “Terrific! How can we help?”

The vision behind the agreement is job creation, but with a new twist. Since government efforts were being stifled by the greed of financial speculators and private capital was more interested in cheap labor abroad, unions will take matters into their own hands, find willing partners, and create jobs themselves, but in sustainable businesses owned by the workers.
Continue reading Steelworkers Seek Job Creation via Worker-Owned Factories →

Campaign for America’s Future

After leading the dramatic three day Showdown in Chicago at the American Bankers Association (ABA) Convention in Chicago, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will head to the House Financial Service Committee today to testify against proposed reform legislation that actually gives the banks more power. In a twist of irony, he literally sit down the table from American Bankers Association Ed Yingling as he testifies against the banksters.

After weakening current law on derivatives., the committee has once again weakened law in the banker’s favor. The drafted legislation concerning banks “too big to fail” which would actually lead to more bailouts over the long run.

Continue reading AFL-CIO Pres. Rich Trumka To Testify in Congress Against Phony Bank Reform Bill →

Mondragon Co-op

For More Information:  Rob Witherell, 412-562-4333, rwitherell@usw.org

Steelworkers Form Collaboration with MONDRAGON, the World’s Largest Worker-Owned Cooperative

Pittsburgh (Oct. 27, 2009) – The United Steelworkers (USW) and MONDRAGON Internacional, S.A. today announced a framework agreement for collaboration in establishing MONDRAGON cooperatives in the manufacturing sector within the United States and Canada.  The USW and MONDRAGON will work to establish manufacturing cooperatives that adapt collective bargaining principles to the MONDRAGON worker ownership model of “one worker, one vote.”

Continue reading USW Forms Alliance with World’s Largest Cooperative →