By Frank Islam and Ed Crego
Based upon the rhetoric at the quadrennial labor convention held in Los Angeles this week, it appears that the labor movement will be trying new things and working diligently to break out of the daze we described in our most recent blog.
Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, in his keynote address at the convention declared, “We must begin, here and now, today, the great work of reawakening a movement of working people — all working people, not just the people in this hall, not just the people we represent today – but everyone who works in this country…”. Before the convention, Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times quoted Trumka as saying, “The crisis has deepened. It’s at a point where we really must do something differently. We really have to experiment.”
The coverage of the convention suggests that the reawakening and experiments will include: embracing “worker centers” — nonprofit groups that are not unions who organize low-wage workers, and building coalitions with other interest groups to achieve collective bargaining through ballot measures such as increasing the minimum wage and securing health care coverage.
What we haven’t seen reported in any great detail, however, is one of the most innovative and highest potential new initiatives to revitalize the labor and workers’ movement in the United States that comes to us from — of all places — Spain. That’s the entry and expansion of Mondragon Corporation (Mondragon), the world’s largest industrial, worker-owned and run cooperative, into the American market and workplace.
The Mondragon story is not well known outside of Spain and labor circles. It is one that deserves to be told, however, given the current conditions confronting the American worker and the footprint Mondragon is beginning to build stateside.
In March of this year, the Financial Times (FT) gave Mondragon its Drivers of Change “Boldness in Business” award. FT stated that Mondragon was given this prize “for what it represents in terms of a real proposal for a new type of business model, ‘Humanity at Work,’ based on cooperation, working together, solidarity, and involving people in the work environment.”
Read the entire article via The Huffington Post.
